IntroducTION
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This manifesto was written in August 2015 during an intensive 8-day international screendance residency entitled Hybrid Communities.
Hybrid Communities references the amalgam of creative, sensitive, experimental and transdisciplinary states of the body. This amalgam is inscribed in art and society and is at the heart of screendance’s field of research. It questions the representations of the body-on-screen which result from choreographic and audio-visual research. In order to avoid getting lost in terminologies and ontological debates, we have decided to name our current practice ‘screendance’ in English, ‘ciné-chorégraphie’ in French, and ‘videodanza’ in Spanish. In doing so, we acknowledge that we could have also chosen to name it dance film, cinedance, dance on camera, dance for the camera, dance on screen and so on. Our aim is to focus on what screendance ‘does’, rather than on what it ‘is’. This manifesto expresses the assembled group’s questions and discussions. It contains interrogations, affirmations, un-resolved and recycled ideas. It reflects also the contradictions, the conflicts, the divergences of opinions and the dead-ends that we encountered whilst working together and in sharing our individual experiences. Our manifesto is incomplete and is open to discourses to come. Its fragmented format echoes the nature of our various artistic practices. The composition of our hybrid community is a reflection of a larger international network with which we share affinities. Our manifesto is a guide. Our manifesto is a springboard. Our manifesto is a trace. Our manifesto is a beating heart. Could we sing our proposals, could we also have humor? Flies and lies, please, come to the screen! |
I
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What is screendance?
Why the word screendance? Is it important to re-name screendance? For what reason do we practice screendance? To create spaces, concepts, resources; to encourage production and experimentation; for people; to end prejudice, taboo and limits. |
Is screendance an unfinished tool, always in transformation?
Is the presence of a body on screen enough to define a work as screendance? Is screendance a state of the body? Why expend so much effort in defining screendance? Is definition limiting? |
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Towards a desacralization of screendance.
Screendance as hammer, air, river, and squirrel at the same time. Is a manifesto something that limits or expands possibilities? Is it perhaps necessary to have two manifestos: one artistic and one academic? Is art simply a posture? Screendance as an audio-visual architecture. Does screendance have political and social dimensions? Is screendance a space where the political and the personal necessarily relate to one another? |
Screendance: multifaceted, multicolour.
Does everything and anything belong in a screedance work? Are there fundamental principles in screendance, is there a truth? Could we start form zero and repeat all errors from the past? Are we in a new era of screendance? |
III
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Demystify the notion of curation.
The curator as an artist and the artist as a curator. How to widen and diversify the range of spectators and creators in screendance? To consider diverse promotion platforms for screendance: theaters, cinemas, galleries, museums, web, TV, etc. Eliminate hierarchy between professionalism and amateurism. Who watches screendance? |
Can screendance be better promoted with the publication of books, flyers, and newsletters?
“Make visible the invisible” (Merleau-Ponty / Rancière) through screendance: social, economical, political, geographic and gender dimensions. Is artistic expression a social force? What is the role of the artist in her/his society? |
What is the link between screendance and society? Can screendance be a social tool? Could it be ritual?
Find means to circulate social works. Envision the notion of cultural mediation as an artistic creation in itself. Create spaces to welcome older artists and children behind and in front of the camera. |
IV
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Is it important to include gender approaches in screendance?
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"The destruction of visual pleasure as a radical weapon". (Laura Mulvey)
Film bodies as subjects, not as objects. For an "alogic narrative" (Maris Bustamante) in screendance and interdisciplinarity. Enhance the role of the interpreter-performer in screendance. Value the presence and the force of feminine voices: creators, professors, performers, curators, etc. |
V
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How to get funding for screendance creation?
Encourage a diversity of practices. |
How to instigate spaces for the creative process in screendance?
Does the result should be always more important than the process? Artistic creation as serious research. Pedagogy as a survival weapon. Expand, promote and problematize the presence of screendance in academic milieus: analysis, creation, and theory. |
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Pedagogy as curation and curation as pedagogy.
Create collective pedagogic tools in screendance. Create a theory of screendance. Organize spaces for encounters. |
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Create spaces in which we can develop a sense of belonging, accompaniment, and motivation in an artistic community.
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VI
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International community as a strategic force.
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Who will read this manifesto?
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Is art in a world apart, or is it a part of the world?
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Art is a state of encounter.
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Ladys Gonzalez (Argentina), Priscilla Guy and Emilie Morin (Canada), Camille Auburtin and Jean-Baptiste Fave (France), Benito González, Rocío Becerril Porras, Yolanda M. Guadarrama, Ximena Monroy, Laura Ríos, Paulina Ruiz Carballido, Alfredo Salomón and Laura Vera (Mexico).
English proofreading: Katrina McPherson (Scotland) Graphic conception of manifesto: Étienne Després (Canada) |
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