Diva (screendance film)

Abstract

Diva is a screen dance film. As an interdisciplinary art form it merges two distinct disciplines and languages, dance and film, in a two-way discussion manipulating each process to produce an innovative relationship. Disrupting and challenging such symbolic boundaries invites a different way of perceiving an alternative kind of inter-relational experience. Screen mediated bodies displace the centre of gravity for both performer and audience providing new research interfaces, and explore questions of inter-corporeality within this mixed reality environment. In keeping with researching dance genealogy, Diva emerged from a sustained period of practical research into predominantly female European Ausdruckstanz solo performances, directly inspired by former teachers/mentors Hanya Holm and Hilde Holger resulting in the faux archive screen dance film Diva. Diva a jaded dance artist processes up her red carpet, craving the attention she deserves, and she performs a magnificent reconstruction from 1927 of the little known work Largo. Since nobody gives a fig she blows a dance raspberry and performs an impromptu rendition of Ranki Panki circa 2007. Diva is where fact and fiction collide, archive and reportage rupture. Funded by the University of Brighton Faculty Research Support Fund, Diva was acquired for inclusion in Channel 4’s The ABC OF DANCE4 transmission 2009, and has been shown on ABC Australia in 2007. Diva received the Hong Kong Jumping Frames 2008 Dance Video Award and was shortlisted for NU2’s IDN – Image, Dance and New Media Festival, VideoDansa Barcelona international Prize 2009