Dance film

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Dance film is the cinematic interpretation of existing dance works, originally created for live performance or the creation of choreography that can only exist in the medium of film or video. Dance works made specifically for film presentation are known as Dance for camera.

Existing dance works may be modified for the purposes of filming. This can involve a wide variety of film techniques. Depending on the amount of choreograpic and / or presentational adjustment an original work is subjected to, the filmed version may be considered as dance for camera.

Britain's DV8 Physical Theatre, directed by Lloyd Newson, is well known for its film versions of staged works. The reworking of Enter Achilles (1995) for film in 1996 is a seminal example of Dance for camera. Recently acclaimed works include "The Cost of Living".^[1]

Australia's The Physical TV Company, directed by Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman, is well known for creating original works that are a sophisticated meeting of the possibilities of cinema with those of dance. Dance films such as "Rubberman Accepts The Nobel Prize" (2001), "No Surrender" (2002), and "Down Time Jaz" (2003) are differing examples of the possibilities of this approach involving comedy, visual effects, drama, and animation.

Another example is Chris Brandt's machinima work 'Dance, Voldo, Dance' which used computer game characters within the game Soul Caliber to act out a live, choreographed dance. Two players simultaneously performed the dance piece using game controllers. The work existed as a live performance on screen, and has since been edited and distributed on the internet as a video work.