I´m always hopeful when I go to a video dance festival that it´ll be exciting and fun, but they all keep disappointing me. Great dancers, beautiful sets but they do not make me feel anything. There has to be another way of expressing the body through video.
I always think of the beautiful dance for the camera film ROSAS DANST ROSAS from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. A choreography set in an abandoned building. Simple and detailed but full of emotion. Simplicity is what we need in front of the camera in order to appreciate dance movements. I believe it is for the camera to catch those angles and take us to different perspectives of a movement or emotion.
I love dance, it has always been my passion but at one point I felt stuck in the abstraction of movements that didn't say anything to me. I felt I needed to breakthrough to other disciplines in order to express myself. That's when I found Butoh and Performance Art, taking me deeper in to dark places that hadn't been explored.
Maybe I´m looking for the same in a dance video/film, stimulation to awareness and consciousness of our bodies in modern society. New proposals of our bodies in other imaginaries. Somehow dance seems to stay in the superficial happy tone that tends to bore me.
Well, I will continue going to these festivals and maybe one day I'll be surprised and my wish will come true. Never lose hope!