WINDOWS ON DANCE

DANCE

23 Oct

Recently landed: Windows on Dance

Gracia’s written response to Forma, choreographed and performed by Jill Ogai, for Fjord Review.

In a window longer than it is tall, within a white frame, there is a room. A room as a blank canvas. A room as a piece of paper awaiting the first gesture of a drawing. The optical illusion of this window through to a room held within a white frame makes the information it holds appear three-dimensional: my eye registers a room and the white frame becomes a flat two-dimensional screen, on my computer screen, by comparison.

My eye registers #FFFFFF, the hex for white, or 0, 0, 0, 0, for CMYK: the frame around this reverse ‘Room with a View’ where I am looking in rather than Miss Honeychurch looking out. Though the depth of field is short, it is present. The proportions are set by video. The proportions are set by now. A series of pixels dance. Data moves. This piece is made for the screen. This piece is Jill Ogai’s Forma, the third work presented by the Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque.Digital 2020 season.

This piece was made to be viewed as a video looping on a screen — any screen, from desktop to handheld. At a neat 4-minutes and 22-seconds, Forma asks, “Can choreography exist in 2D shape as well as in the customary physical form?” and the answer is YES. Copy and paste the modifier sequence of clapping hands and own skin tone thrice. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 *Emoji applause*