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Mediatheque
Charles Atlas 查爾斯．阿特拉斯
Merce Cunningham 摩斯．康寧漢
Fractions Ⅰ 微小部分（一）
1978
Blending the mediums of dance and video art, this work was a collaboration between filmmaker Charles Atlas and one of the pioneering choreographers of the post-war era, Merce Cunningham. Cunningham’s choreography, performed to a minimalist flute score, dispenses with the typical narrative devices of ballet, instead using movement to form abstract, gestural patterns of motion. The blank space of the studio is interrupted at times by free-standing block s of colour and several television sets placed near the camera. The screens show live feeds of the dancers, shot from multiple angles, as well as prerecorded footage. These simultaneous, fragmented perspectives draw attention to the way the camera intervenes in the viewer’s experience of the dance—focusing attention on certain elements or directing it away from others—rather than passively recording the event.
Cunningham and Atlas developed an approach they called ‘media dance’, where the camera became an active part of the choreography and the audience’s experience alongside the dancers themselves. Atlas left the dance company in the early 1980s and went on to make independent films exploring the intersections between dance, art, and urban subcultures; Cunningham continued to choreograph and lead the company until his death in 2009.
Cunningham and Atlas developed an approach they called ‘media dance’, where the camera became an active part of the choreography and the audience’s experience alongside the dancers themselves. Atlas left the dance company in the early 1980s and went on to make independent films exploring the intersections between dance, art, and urban subcultures; Cunningham continued to choreograph and lead the company until his death in 2009.
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