DANCE ON CAMERA

"Dance on Camera" will introduce the students to the genre of screen dance, covering topics such as directing, performing, filming, and editing. The course will be an experimental platform for students to explore what it means to choreograph or capture movements, and how to use the camera as a collaborator in composing a performance or dance sequence. The course time will be devoted to movement/directing exercises, camera tutorials, editing workshops, as well as screening and lecture time. ​

We will spend time looking at works by Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Maya Deren, as well as contemporary filmmakers such as Sarah Friedland, Li Chao Ping, and Jia Zhangke. And I will mainly introduce two frameworks for students to work within, one is devised experimental performance, and other is ethnographic and documentary framework. In both approaches I will emphasize the pedestrian approach, teaching students how to compose performance with everyday objects and writings, and also how to use the documentary lens to capture movements they observe. 

The workshop’s goal is to create a non-hierarchical space for participants to devise, choreograph, frame and record movements, and learn to use body language as a expressive cinematic form and narrative device. I hope that through the workshop, all can be encouraged to create not beautiful images, but poetic forms, using any digital device that they have at hand, and learning to reframe and compose with pedestrian movements as dance materials. The students will work either solo or in groups to produce their own short films as culminating projects toward the end of the course.

INSTRUCTOR

Cherrie Yu was born in Xi’an, China in 1995. She relocated to the US in 2013. Her films and performances have shown at Chicago Cultural Center, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Roman Susan Gallery, Wassaic Project in New York, the David Ireland House in SF, Kala Art Institute in Berkeley CA, Contemporary Calgary Museum in Calgary Canada, and Institute of Contemporary Art in Rockland, ME. She has been an artist in residence at Sharpe Walentas Studio Program, ACRE Residency, Contemporary Calgary Museum, Monson Arts, Yaddo, and McColl Center.  She was an awardee of the Kala Art Institute Media Award Fellowship in 2022.  She has been a visiting artist at Emory University’s anthropology department, and a visiting teaching artist at the Visual Art department at UNC Charlotte.
Image credit: Cherrie Yu
THIS CLASS IS AVAILBLE IN PERSON ONLY
​AT ABRONS ARTS CENTER:
466 Grand Street, NY, NY

THURSDAYS 6-8 PM EST
April 4 - April 25, 2024
4 sessions
$250 Tuition
BIPOC sliding scale available
50% low income discount available
+ $25 non-refundable registration fee
This program is made possible through the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).