Dance’s Duet with the Camera: Motion Pictures

Dance’s Duet with the Camera: Motion Pictures is a collection of essays written by various authors on the relationship between live dance and film. Chapters cover a range of topics that explore dance film, contemporary dance with film on stage, dance as an ideal medium to be captured by 3D images and videodance as kin to site-specific choreography. This book explores the ways in which early practitioners such as Loïe Fuller and Maya Deren began a conversation between media that has continued to evolve and yet still retains certain unanswered questions. Methodology for this conversation includes dance historical approaches as well as mechanical considerations. The camera is a partner, a disembodied portion of self that looks in order to reflect on, to mirror, or to presage movement. This conversation includes issues of sexuality, race, and mixed ability. Bodies and lenses share equal billing.

Telory Arendell is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies at Missouri State University, USA. Her books include Performing Disability: Staging the Actual (2009) and The Autistic Stage: How Cognitive Disability Changed 20th-Century Performance (2015).

Ruth Barnes is a choreographer, performer and dance educator. She is a professor and Dance Program Coordinator at Missouri State University, USA.