FLOODESIGN

SPEND 30 MINUTES WATCHING DANCE ON FILM WITH TOM HURWITZ, AN AWARD-WINNING CINEMATOGRAPHER, AND HE WILL FLIP YOUR VIEWING EXPERIENCE ON ITS HEAD. INSTEAD OF WATCHING THE DANCE, YOU BEGIN TO WATCH THE FRAME. BREATHING THE LENS You gradually become aware of the camera's micro-movements that keep the dancers in view: the feet are never cut off; the sliver of visible floor is always just right. As the dancers move left or right, the frame responds, tracking their path of travel. A perfectly timed zoom-out — a breathing of the lens — makes space for a lift. We are watching the "Dance in America" taping of the ballet "Jewels," which George Balanchine adapted for television in the late 1970s under the direction of Merrill Brockway. Hurwitz explains the grammar of shots Balanchine and Brockway preferred: wide shot, full figure, or waist up (also known as the Cowboy or Tutu shot). The frame must never cut off the dancers' fingers and toes. "That's most likely my friend Eddie Fussell on camera," Hurwitz says, in a reverent tone reserved for gods or heroes, as he calls out a particularly fine follow shot in "Emeralds," the first section of "Jewels." We see Balanchine's choreography so clearly, circa 1977, because of the physical skill of camera operators like Fussell and Hurwitz. BY EMILY COATES Yvonne Rainer. "Three Satie Spoons, 1961" Performed in "Yvonne Rainer: Early Dance, 1961–1969" September 16, 2018, as part of Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done The Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 16, 2018–February 3, 2019. Performer: Emily Coates. Digital image © 2019 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Paula Court The author in Yvonne Rainer's "Three Satie Spoons" (1961). No photograph or film exists of Rainer, the original performer, executing this particular jump in the 1960s, a gap in the visual archive that essentially renders the jump an unknown. 6 | PEAKPERFS.ORG

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