o m nm ^J •• a IHnH TI in-.;-: O PULSE 1960 Dance in the Screen Media Inde x Jean Renoir, Joanna Gewertz 3 CONVERSATION WITH RENOIR Sidney Peterson 4 PHILIPPE OR THE FUTURE OF DANCE MOVIES David Vaughan 8 DANCE IN THE CINEMA Robert Graham 16 THE "DOCUMENTARY" DANCE FILM 19 RECORDING SESSION AT JUILLIARD SCHOOL David Thayer 22 TELEVISION LIGHTING Carol Levene 25 THE PRODUCER COMMENTS 26 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION 27 KQ E D 28 THE DANCE FILMS OF MARTHA GRAHAM 31 "DANCED ANTHROPOLOGY" Martha Myers 32 "A TIME TO DANCE" - Dance Series for National Educational Television 38 Notes on JOHN BUTLER Janet Mason 39 DANCE SEEN THROUGH THE "EYES" OF A TELEVISION CAMERA Gerald Marans 42 TELEVISING DANCE - THE LOCAL SCENE Daniel Nagrin 45 THE HIGH FIDELITY OF VISION Nik Krevitsky 48 MAYA DEREN AND DANCE IN THE FILMIC MEDIUM Welland Lathrop 50 TRIPTYCH - A Film Adaptation of a Dance Rudy Bretz, Alma Hawkins 51 TELEVISION - A TOOL FOR TEACHING DANCE 54 Notes on PEARL LANG 55 Notes on ALWIN NIKOLAIS 56 RESOURCES anyone yet who didn't have a strong opinion about it — particularly those who don't watch it." When we began Prefac e working on this issue of IMPULSE, we were some­ what discouraged by this attitude. We found that many In selecting Dance in the Screen Media as the subject dancers have been prone to dismiss film and television for the 1960 issue, the editorial board of IMPULSE as inadequate substitutes for live performance, and was aware that it was undertaking a formidable task. indeed they are. A dancer has a good measure of To cover such a broad field is impossible. It is our masochism inthe makeup of his personality. He values hope that by asking specialists to speak from their ex­ the exhilarating muscular effort and control; the won­ perience and conviction, IMPULSE can be a stimu­ derful feeling of exhaustion that goes with dancing, not lating and controversial source for further experi­ to speak of the excitement of performing for a live mentation and activity in dance. A letter from the audience in the theatre. director of the Department of Education, San Juan, Puerto Rico already gives evidence of such interest: However, after nearly a year of concentrating on "The only film we have made that touches on dance is this area of dance performance and talking with people i La Plena which is actually in production. This film is who are dedicated to doing fine dance work on tele­ a documentary without words showing how one of vision and film, we find a trend among dancers toward Puerto Rico's mostvigorous art forms came intobe- greater acceptance of these comparatively new media. ing; through a blending of Spanish and African folk Among other things, notice has just been received of music. These folk songs, now a part of our culture, the National Dance Notation Conference which will in­ have influenced and inspired artists in many fields — clude a Panel Discussion on Filming of Dance, with one of them, the dance. I regret that there are no film illustrations, in which Shirley Clarke, Dwight others to bring to your attention. I have inquired of the Godwin, and Helen Rogers will participate. Institute of Culture and they also know of none. Per­ haps your inquiry may start us thinking." Choreographers have been using film for recording their dances since the early thirties, when techniques Film and television, which are really two different of photography consisted of reading and following the media, are inextricably related. They are both shown instructions on the Eastman Kodak film package. How­ on screens of various sizes. Sometimes a film which ever, many of the problems that beset the maker of has been made from any one of several points of view: dance films today were being considered at that time.* record, instructional, experimental, documentary, These record films of only "archeological" interest etc., will be shown on television. Then, again, a live were usually made for the purpose of checking on per­ television performance may be kinescoped and used formance and remembering repertoire. Colleges have later for film projection. used the device of filming advanced students' work in composition. In the forties and early fifties avant- Also, these media are both two dimensional. For garde examples of cinematographic choreography dancers, this is an apparently insoluble problem at the were made as experiments. outset. As our contributors point out, you cannot look at television and film inthe same way as you look at a The outlook for the future is exciting with many live performance. On the other hand, from the point of possibilities to investigate. view of the sympathetic onlooker, a strange adj ustment toward credulity is made in watching these two-di­ "Here Is a new art. For a few decades It seemed mensional performances. Unless a negative attitude is like nothing more than a new technical device in the sphere of drama, a new way of preserving and retailing maintained, the audience member begins to "believe" dramatic performances. But today Its development in much the same way as when looking at fine puppet has already belied this assumption. The screen is not theatre — vital, life size three dimensionality is en­ astage, and what is created in the conception and real­ dowed upon the performers. On the other hand, the ization of a film Is not a play. It is too early to sys­ tematize any theory of this new art, but even in Its pre­ huge screen used by some motion pictures demands sent pristine state it exhibits — quite beyond anydoubt, the opposite adjustment to bring the figures down to I think — not only a new technique, but a new poetic size. mode." * * Snobbism about television is another factor to be considered. Terrence O' Flaherty, the television * Lewis Jacobs, "Toward Dance Films", Dance Observer, critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote in his Vol. I (June-July, 1934), p.l column of September 25, 1959, "Television like love ** Susanne K. Langer. Feeling and Form (New York: Charles and the weather is Everybody's business. I haven't met Scribner's Sons, 1953), p.411. National Educational Television has already offered This authority of images which is one of the charac­ subsidy for several kinds of dance programs: the beau­ teristics of our time poses the question of how to un­ tiful and evocative films of Martha Graham; A Time fetter the eyes that are looking at the screen. Choreo­ to Dance, the series for which Martha Myers was re­ graphers must consider who is looking. An audience sponsible; as well as the significant incorporation of must be given time to react. Perhaps part of the prob­ dance into the twelve programs of People are Taught lem is to discover how to provide that time. to be Different, which has been described as "danced anthropology." Itis a complicated business. People who see thea­ tre dance may be unhappy when they see the same dance filmed or televised. We cannot stress too much the Commercial television and film are giving increas­ fact that it is different. Sometimes, it works the other ing recognition to dance. This means not only that way. For instance, we saw Jose'Limon's The Moor's more people see dance, but that more dancers are em­ Pavane on film several times before seeing it on stage. ployed. The circle of more demand, more supply is For us the concert version was disappointing because beingformed and enlarged. But the broadening of the there was so much "waste space" around the dancers, base of film production is urgent. We cannot wait for and the marvelous intensity of the limited screen view commercial or educational television to investigate was diluted. Perhaps it has something to do with what and solve all of the problems. Dancers are going to constitutes one's first exposure. have to do it with friends with 16mm cameras, and make hundreds and hundreds of films. There could, We have gathered material concerning many as­ conceivably, be opportunites to work with videotape pects of the communication arts of television and film. since it can be erased if the work is not satisfactory. The attitudes, experiences and theories of dancers, Itis impossible to predict the techniques of communi­ choreographers, directors, producers, critics, in­ cation that may be discovered. dependent film makers, educators, specialists in technical areas, photographers, librarians and his­ Kafka tells us that the cinema disturbs vision be­ torians are presented as reflections of how they felt cause of the swift rhythm of the motions and changes and thought about these problems in the year 1960. of images. "We inevitably fail to see what is pro­ They are all concerned with making the dance image jected," he says. "It is not the eye that takes hold of more satisfactory to meet the perpetual challenge of the images, the images take hold of the eye." getting dance onto film. Marian Van Tuyl Acknowledge ments Cover: Layout by Lilly Weil Jaffe (Photograph by Roy Stevens made at rehearsal of OMNIBUS television performance "The Art of Choreography" featuring Agnes de Mille). Print: from the collection of George Chaffee by courtesy of Aaron Ashby, Inc., New York. Photographs by courtesy of: Dance Magazine, New York 8, 12, 14-15 Film Library, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 9, 11 Theatrical Research and Display, San Francisco 10 Columbia Pictures, New York 13 Station WQED-TV, Pittsburg 28 Nathan Kroll, New York 29-30 National Educational Television Center, New York 29 James F. Cayne from Black Star 32 Station KQED-TV, San Francisco 27, 42, 44 Barbara M.