Paloma Faith, Beatrice Brown and a wooden "dance machine"in a still from the experimental dance film Tingel Tangel (2007) by Kathryn Ferguson
MOVIES, MOVES AND MUSIC: The Sonic World of Dance Films
Edited by Dr Pauline Manley and Dr Mark Evans
Published by Equinox, London
About the Volume
Over the last 40 years, while the musical film has faded from its historical high-point to a more isolated and quirky phenomenon, the dance film has displayed refulgent growth and surprising resilience. A phenomena of modern movie-making, the dance film has spawned profitable global enterprises (Billy Elliot), has fashioned youthful angst as sociological voice (Saturday Night Fever, Footloose and Dirty Dancing) and acted as a marker of post-modern ironic camp (Strictly Ballroom). This modern genre has influenced cinema as a whole in the ways bodies are made dimensional, in the way rhythm and energy are communicated, and in the filmic capacity to create narrative worlds without words.
Emerging as a distinct (sub) genre in the 1970s, dance film has been crafting its own meta-narrative and aesthetic paradigms that, nonetheless, display extraordinary variety. Ranging from the experimental, ‘you are there’ sonic explorations of Robert Altman’s The Company and the brutal energy of David La Chappelle’s Rize to the lighter ‘backstage musical’ form displayed in Centre Stage and Save the Last Dance, this genre has garnered both commercial and artistic success.
Meanwhile, Bollywood has become a juggernaut, creating transportable memory for diasporic Indian communities across the world. This is an entire industry based on the ‘dance number’, where films are pitched around the choreography, where the actors are not expected to sing, but they must dance.
This series of essays will investigate the relationship between movement and sound as it is revealed, manipulated and crafted in the dance film genre. It will consider the role of all aspects of sound in the dance film, including the dancer generated sounds inherent in Tap, Flamenco, Irish Dance and Krumping. Drawing on significant post-War dance films from around world, this volume will finally address this mainstream genre, where image and sound meet in a crucial symbiosis.
Requirements:
Please send a 250 word abstract to the e-mail address listed below. Final articles would be due mid January 2011.
This volume will focus on the feature dance film rather music video or musicals. We are especially interested in avant-garde, hip hop, Bollywood and commercial ‘backstage’ dance films, but articles which fall outside these categories are also encouraged.
Finalised articles should be between 6000-8000 words.
Please note that acceptance of the proposal does not guarantee publication and all chapters will be subject to normal processes of peer review. Please send proposals and further enquiries to
Dr Pauline Manley
pauline.manley@mq.edu.au
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