Abstract
This paper argues that screendance has always had a potential for interactivity, looks specifically at interactive video, and tracks its history through video art and video games. Taking into account the higher volume of dance that is migrating to the screen as a result of the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic, it also suggests a new term, screened dance, to differentiate those dances and dance events which otherwise would have been live and co-present. Bringing together a transmedia screendance work that unfolded on social media, and interactive narrative works currently available to stream on Netflix, I argue that the innovations and adaptation in the delivery of dance content due to lockdowns imposed by Covid-19, have provided an opportunity for the possibility of interactive screendance.
Highlights
This paper argues that screendance has always had a potential for interactivity, looks at interactive video, and tracks its history through video art and video games
Screendance has always had a potential for interactivity, but this paper argues that this potential has rarely been realized and accessed on a mass scale. Departing from this idea I will look to argue that the higher volume of dance that is migrating to the screen as a result of the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent enforced lockdown, offers an opportunity for screendance to distinguish itself from other dance practices and enhance the practice via the inclusion of interactivity
The examples of interactive video available on Netflix that I have mentioned push the boundaries of how audience members might interact with entertainment
Summary
Defining and naming screendance is something that has been debated since the name’s inception, but for the purposes of this paper I will be aligning my definition with Douglas Rosenberg’s, as an “experiment with choreographic form as well as the formal structure of filmmaking itself, altering camera placement, shot composition, and visual space to find the most efficient and esthetic methods of framing movement.” 5 Screendance is the practice of creating dance explicitly for the screen, whereas I suggest ‘screened dance’ is something else. The cameras do not move, and are often out of focus or over-exposed, suggesting that these works were not primarily intended to be shown as films, but are rather what Maletic has described as a “record tape in place of the dance score” made available due to the imposed lockdown By placing these works next to each other it is easier to see the distinction that I am making between choreography made explicitly for the screen, and work that was intended for the live stage that has migrated to screen space through necessity. I argue that this amplifying and normalizing of screened dance has in turn increased the availability of screendance, making it more accessible to a wider audience base It is my belief that with new and newly trained audiences, screendance practice is ripe for developing interactivity, as some streaming sites have begun to do with television and film. I discuss the possibilities of incorporating interactive video techniques to move screendance practices forward
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