Saint A in B
Portrait of an Acrobat
Realm of the Curtain
Harlequin on the Bridge
Equilibrist
Perspective with Inhabitants
Growth and Branching Out
PROGRAMME NOTES from the director
Line Dances is a sense filled journey for the viewer. Reaching back to Modernism, and forward to the future. Klee said “One eye sees, the other feels”. This statement sits at the heart of what I hope to achieve with these films. Dance is as much visual as it is physical. Watching dance unfold live or on screen is emotive. Capturing the body moving on film holds the dance in time. Like a specimen. You can revisit it, dissect the dance, re-interpret and re-choreograph in the process of editing the film. And finally you print it. The printing of the dance pulls it back to a truly flat space experience, and ties it strongly to graphic art. Although movement is inherent, it has become artificial. The kinetic passages are given the heart of the machine. Like an iron lung on dance. However, there is great merit and beauty in these processes. There is true potential for expression and discovery within the confines of the technology available to us to capture and re-create dance. Choreography quite literally is the method for graphing body movement - artistic movements of the dancer are formulated into pattern, shape and design.
Line Dances demonstrates various levels of interaction between moving figure/body and other imposed geometric systems, aiming towards a fluid space, a modification and metamorphosis. I reference built environments, with aspirations towards an amalgam of the structural and the organic. This many dimensioned window presents the fabric of existence as malleable - there is pulse in the line; a natural geometry underlying all that moves.
It is kinetic as much as it is photographic. The choreography incorporates graphic work layered behind and between the filmed dance. At times the lines exaggerate the corporeal, and develop texture within the space. These constructed environments rely on the human figure as movement catalyst. Discreet spaces challenge, provoke and resist the performer.
The dancers are forced to interpose between visual and audio static realms - electro magnetic fields. Here, the figures (human) are negotiating a series of physics storms. Bombarded with lines, they are fully emerged in this world of cosmic challenges. The electronic audio presents a texture-like wind, and an ambient domain through which the dancers and the piano music speak. Digital Weather. Weather of physics, mathematical weather, choreographic weather, electrical surges, pulsing linear anomalies, dancing zeros and ones.
I'm trying to create a theatre where the artificiality of the stage is evoked in cinema. We are working the plastic space of the screen in a very physical way, and we are inhabiting that visual window with the human body. This film window is as much instrument as the body is instrument. Both talk to each other in a kinetic sense.
Digital line derived from Paul Klee's drawings, informs the collaboration between dancer and new technologies. Part of this exploration is the line relationship to quantum physics. The films are constructed from oscillating lines and the human figure in space. The vibrating strings of the piano render Anthony Ritchie's delightful compositions audible. The lines are being calibrated and re-calibrated by the presence of the dancer. Dancers become catalysts for acceleration in the screen space. These works are like moving paintings which conduct torrents of dance, and line, and colour. I use the visual matrix of the screen like a tuning field seeking frequency. Fragments of dance are tuned into and out of for these kaleidoscopic journeys. This is literally choreographing the screen.
The design in Line Dances embodies the screen as stage, and the stage as instrument. The films treat the visual space, or screen itself as an amplifier and a telescope. Early cameras present us with a miniature stage inside; concertina wings and heightened perspective. In this tight, incubating framework the dance, graphic, and sonic all belong together. It is a dialogue. The scientific visual references to String Theory and astrophysics suggest further spatial potential, and pull the work into a larger context. I have attempted to illustrate M-Theory, where 11-dimensional space is danced in and across lines extended from Klee’s studies of theatre life.
The Fool's relationship to theatre is profound. He is the big question mark. He is the zero in zero point energy. His wake creates spasms of creativity and chaos; he is the great movement maker.
The films are meditations on, and celebrations of space - the human figure pictured in time. In a truly plastic and choreographed screen, seven miniature stories in dance are presented. In the films the characters are taking steps to waking up in a spiritual sense. They have their own magic. They are touching, seeing and observing the lines and light in space. Are they walking along lines of destiny? They are creating the future as they make that walk. It is an odyssey in dance.
The films are blueprints for a genesis of consciousness. Line, dance and music converge in the screen space to create as Klee said a 'between world' (Zwischenwelt).
Paul Klee's legacy is that his works go on inspiring us generation after generation. For this we can be forever grateful. I dedicate these films to the memory of Paul Klee.
Daniel Alexander Belton (c) 2010 CNZ Choreographic Fellow 2009-10
If you wish to comment on the films please send emails to: xyz@goodcompanyarts.com
FILM CREDITS
dance artists | choreographic process
daniel belton
emmett hardie
donnine harrison
courtney poulier
katie hurst-saxton
sir jon trimmer
ballerina
katie hurst-saxton
fool
sir jon trimmer
goose girl
donnine harrison
harlequin
daniel belton
red shoes girl
courtney poulier
sailor
emmett hardie
choreography | choreographic direction
daniel belton
static line drawings after paul klee
wjs grenfell
line drawing animations | compositing
leonid sokolova
further post
string environments | scenography
digiphysics
nils stroop
daniel belton
piano music (titles after paul klee)
harlequin on the bridge
(after mr f: le roussau)
perspective with inhabitants
equilibrist
realm of the curtain
portrait of an acrobat
saint a in b
growth and branching out
composer
anthony ritchie
pianist
anthony ritchie
piano recording
lou kewene
audio post production
nils stroop
daniel belton
film sound design
daniel belton
space radio | sound wave audio
radio astronomy
john stewart
yfir
commedia dell'arte costumes
tanya carlson
acrobat line costumes
kelly nichol
kinetic sculpture suits
daniel belton
tutus
royal new zealand ballet
milliners
margo barton
kelly nichol
props | objects
stairstrument™
foolscap theatre disincorporated
painters
pepa belton
daniel belton
ito bakst
light magnetics | astro physics data
nils stroop
keplerscope animation
osraz densky
euclidean optics
daniel belton
francois jacques
marcel cocteau
harmonic phase cosines
warrol senki
daniel belton
holographic rendering
AgNO 3
illustrator nodes
olympicpixel
harmonographs
pilaf olaf
film compositing
daniel belton
art consultant
peter belton
anti-g chamber
dance flume inc.
lighting
electrical technicians
spectronasium
cinematographers
wjs grenfell
daniel belton
post production house
film editor
daniel belton
project research | original concept
daniel belton (cnz choreographic fellow 2009-10)
producer
donnine harrison
director | designer
daniel alexander belton
acknowledgements
paul klee (1879-1940)
kenneth olumuyiwa tharp OBE, the place, london, great britain
dr angie farrow, english and media studies visiting artists residency
massey university turitea campus, new zealand
university of otago department of music, new zealand
marlon barrios solano, dance-tech, new york, america
justine shih pearson, reeldance, sydney, australia
dr claudia rossiny, bern, switzerland
nuria font, idn barcelona, spain
marcos gomez and the spanish embassy of new zealand
moving image centre, new zealand
amanda skoog and the royal new zealand ballet
bill nichol photography, dunedin, new zealand
peter belton studio, dunedin, new zealand
f: le roussau (dancing-master)
the three puppeteers
mnemosyne
daniel belton and good company 2010 © film copyright. all rights reserved.
www.goodcompanyarts.com