Video

bodies in motion is a series of videos by self-taught screen dance artist Nita Bowerman. Unable to afford a daily studio space for creation, Bowerman was drawn to perfoming in public spaces and, with her first iPhone, she was able to take self-publishing performance a step further. 

Bowerman is featured in our September/October 2017 print issue in the article “Video Feedback: How DIY screen dance is changing the way we create” by Jillian Groening. The piece looks at three Canadian dance artists, Francesca Chudnoff, Bowerman and Jamie Robinson, who have carved their own artistic paths using iPhones, Instagram handles and pioneering will. 

Self-published dancefilm is swiftly becoming a movement in a field that has been mostly led by hierarchal company roles and training institutions. By pushing past the limits of their training, artists are able to expand their voice and explore new ways of doing and seeing. According to Bowerman, “It’s like making the world strange, and through making the world strange, we can see it in a new way.”

The following tips were offered by Bowerman for dance artists interested in self presenting their work via these channels.

Keep training

One valuable thing that developed for me out of my dance training was the notion that your training is never done. You need to get in the studio and develop a practice.

Don’t stop producing

Just keep making. You don’t have to publish everything you make. It’s through making that we discover what it is that we have to say.

Take in art and reference

Consume art. See as many different kinds of art as you can, from all kinds of different disciplines from all over the world. You never know what is going to speak to you.

Full video credits:

Video: Nita Bowerman
Dancer: Sophia Wolfe
Music: Bensound.com
Footage from the Bodies in Motion workshop, offered by Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society& Festival Of Recorded Movement.
Colour pattern generated with Isadora and edited merged with dance footage with Adobe Creative Cloud.

~

See more of Bowerman’s videos >> vimeo.com/nitabowerman

Read the full article in print >> thedancecurrent.com/issue/volume-20-issue-5

Don’t miss tips on how to make DIY screen dance from Francesca Chudnoff and Jamie Robinson - parts one and three in our three-part series.

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