Shooting on video helps this process immensely, as the performers, camera operator and director can look back at the material and together evaluate the effect of certain decisions and types of movement and how things could tried differently. In the process, the dancer and camera really do become dancing partners and a sense of ‘liveness’ is captured on tape.

In the context of making video dance, improvisation can be a misunderstood – and scary – word. For some, it suggests a free-for-all i.e. un-prepared filming with everyone doing what they please and then see what you can piece to gather in the edit suite. For those coming from a narrative film background, where the convention is to work from a pre-written script, improvisation can seem an alien concept, although similar practises have been used by many well-known film-makers. Dance makers are probably more familiar with the idea of working with improvisation, both as a means of generating material which will then be choreographed and as performance material in its own right.

Whilst it may be accepted that improvisation could be a valid tool for generating ideas and developing material, when it comes to filming material that will be used in the finished video dance, it is usually thought to be wiser to set and rehearse everything before committing to tape. However, in my experience, there is a qualitative difference between the performance of video dance material that has been set exactly and that material which retains elements of improvisation.

In ‘Pace’ (1996), dancer and choreographer Marisa Zanotti and I set out to explore ways of conveying energy and speed on screen. We were determined to make a video dance work – in this case for broadcast on BBC television – that would have the audience sitting on the edge of their seat.

‘Pace’ was the first entirely improvised video dance that I directed. Over a couple of weeks in the studio, Marisa and I developed a series of structured improvisations which were rehearsed and refined until we knew that, come the shooting days, they would generate the type of images we wanted for our video dance. The various sections of the finished work are based on a series of improvisations which explore different relationships between camera and dancer, and the effect of various lenses, framing choices and ways of moving camera in relation to a variety of explorations of movement ideas by the dancer.

The energy and rawness of ‘Pace’ comes very close to what Marisa and I had envisaged and on this basis of this experience, I have continued to use improvisation in many of the video dance works that I have directed. In some cases this has been for certain sections – i.e. in ‘Moment’, where around 20% of the material was improvised, with the remainder being set. In other cases, such as ‘Pace’ and ‘Sense-8’, all the material that was used in the final edit was generated through structured improvisation.

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Choreography in the edit suite

Another important layer of creativity for me in making video dance is the editing. It is through the juxtaposition o f different shots and sounds that the work assumes its emotional impact, as characters are revealed through fragments of action and the viewer is drawn through a series of events and states. The significance of a moment, or movement, is explored as time is slowed down, stretched, speeded up, repeated or stopped by the editing. The narratives that emerge tend to be subtle and intriguing, suggested rather than explained, impressionistic rather than literal.

There are two fundamental approaches that can be taken to editing dance for the screen. Firstly, there is editing for the continuity of the live choreography, where the timing and structure of a work originally made for the stage is more or less maintained. Secondly, there is the ‘montage’ approach, in which shots are taken from different spatial and temporal contexts and are re-ordered, breaking down completely the sequence of the live action and creating a spatial logic and rhythm unique to the video dance work.

The concept of montage is central to all the video dance works that I have directed, whether the choreography has been created for the screen (‘Pace’, ‘Sense-8’ & ‘The Truth’) or the work is of a more documentary nature (‘Adugna’ & ‘Symphony’).

I had started working w ith montage in my very first ventures into making video dance. However, it was not until ‘Pace’, which was the first time I had the opportunity to use a non-linear digital editing system, that I was really able to push this approach to a new extreme. By using the possibilities offered by this new media, I began to really explore the effect on the perception of time and movement of repeated and altered patterns of montage.

For example, in one sequence around two minutes into ‘Pace’, the camera moves with the dancer, following a triangular floor pattern through the studio. In the edit, we initially ‘recreated’ this journey by montage-ing shots from different takes of that particular improvisation.

Initially, around 12 shots make up a sequence of 30 seconds. Each time this sequence is repeated, a number of shots are dropped, until in the end it is made up of only three shots. When you watch the sequence in the finished video dance, in your mind’s eye the truncated sequence still covers the same ground as it did when it was made up of the full 12 shots and the performer seems to compete the phrase in a dramatically shorted space of time. The effect is that the speed of the solo dancer’s movement seems to increase dramatically as the space closes in. The drama of the chase is then relieved by the gradual introduction of new material, with a very different texture, shape and inherent rhythm.

Bey ond t h e new technology and the creative opportunities it offered, ‘Pace’ was also the first time that I worked with visual artist and editor Simon Fildes. I very quickly realised that Simon’s input went way beyond being able to operate the editing software. He understood the ideas that Marisa and I had been exploring and was able to take them onto new levels through his understanding of editing. With this project begun what would become an award-winning collaborative editor/director, husband/wife team and Simon and I are still working together more than eight years and twenty projects later! More