Dance 71975

A videotape-to-film transfer based on the solo dancing of Marnee Morris, of the New York City Ballet. Once again, Doris Chase has not merely documented the performance but transformed it into what she describes as a "moving painting." Through special color video effects of feedback, de-beaming and superimposition, she creates an evocative visual interpretation of the dance. We see the dancer from different points of view simultaneously overlapped, most often contrasting close-up and full figure shots. Early in the film we see a full frame close-up of the dancer's feet "on point" in toe shoes. Soon the complete image of the dancer is superimposed and we are invited to linger on the remarkable mechanics of the footwork in relation to the overall shape and dynamic of the dance. The recurring close-ups of the feet become, in a sense, a metaphor for the dance as a whole. Chase isolates parts of the body to allow us a heightened detailed appreciation of the architecture of movement without losing sight of the whole body in space. We should note that her approach is not solely that of a sculptress, but of a painter who at times blurs the contours of the dancer into unusual liquid patterns of brilliant color, only to congeal again into recognizable forms. This interplay of the real and the abstract, the part and the whole, produces a visually involving and sensually appealing interpretation of the dance. Fluidly shifting relationships of form, color, and movement evolve an intimate but ethereal mood.