Fogarty & Evans/Movies, Moves and Music, 2. From Choreocinema To Experimental Screendance: A Personal Archaeology

Exactly where (and when) we locate the birth of screendance may not be particularly important or beneficial. What seems more important is to define screendance in greater detail and to continue to differentiate it from other forms of media which present recorded dance. This task will prove a bit awkward since the screendance canon, as it developed, presented many and often inconsistent definitions, descriptions, labels, and explanations to separate mainstream musical/dance films, dance documentaries, and archival records of proscenium performances from this other “screendance” category. Two of the earliest labels applied to the screendance include ‘choreocinema’, and ‘cine-dance’. As video production superseded film production, the number of labels exploded: Dance for Camera, Dance for the Camera, Dance on Camera, Dance with Camera, Choreography for the Camera, Dance on Screen, Video Dance, Dance Film, Film Dance, Dance 4 Film, Moving-Picture Dance, and Screendance. An excursion into some of the terminology will shine a curious spotlight on this convoluted semantic and theoretical arena.