ONLINE DANCE FILM WORKSHOP:
You do NOT want to miss this amazing opportunity!
See below for topics of discussion, get your questions ready, and connect with experts in the field.
Tuesday, April 4, 6-7:30pm (EST)
Tickets: $25
Online Zoom meeting, session will be recorded if you can't join us live!
Join Katie Bruce (director, Utah Dance Film Festival) for an informational session.
If you want to deepen your artistry and understanding of the ins and outs of making a film for dance, we will discuss things like:
-What makes a great dance film?
-How do you get started?
-Practicalities and what to think about when creating?
-Distribution and the wide realm of dance film
-What IS capturing dance on film?
-Media management, lighting tips, editing do’s and don’ts, music incorporation
Tickets: $25
Online Zoom meeting, session will be recorded if you can't join us live!
Join Katie Bruce (director, Utah Dance Film Festival) for an informational session.
If you want to deepen your artistry and understanding of the ins and outs of making a film for dance, we will discuss things like:
-What makes a great dance film?
-How do you get started?
-Practicalities and what to think about when creating?
-Distribution and the wide realm of dance film
-What IS capturing dance on film?
-Media management, lighting tips, editing do’s and don’ts, music incorporation
WHAT DOES THE WORKSHOP ENTAIL?
Part 1:
Dance Film: The Basics & Differences Between High Budget vs Low Budget Filming
How to get started (what do you need?)
What's the most important thing (or a few things) a beginner would need to know or think about? (Lighting, setting up shots/frames, Editing details)
What are a few "higher level" or advanced approaches to any of the above?
Part 2:
Dance Films: Where do they live?
What are some of the coolest dance films you've seen?
What tends to be selected for festivals?
What are a variety of approaches to dance films?
What speaks to you, Katie, the most when watching a dance film?
What are some of the "surprises" you've encountered with juries and responses to films?
Part 1:
Dance Film: The Basics & Differences Between High Budget vs Low Budget Filming
How to get started (what do you need?)
What's the most important thing (or a few things) a beginner would need to know or think about? (Lighting, setting up shots/frames, Editing details)
What are a few "higher level" or advanced approaches to any of the above?
Part 2:
Dance Films: Where do they live?
What are some of the coolest dance films you've seen?
What tends to be selected for festivals?
What are a variety of approaches to dance films?
What speaks to you, Katie, the most when watching a dance film?
What are some of the "surprises" you've encountered with juries and responses to films?
KATIE BRUCE'S STORY
My story with dance began around age 4 when my parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class. Anytime music played in the gym, I danced, and paid no attention to the task at hand. I was enrolled in jazz technique classes so quickly, and that was my foundation of early learning in dance. I only went to one competition as a young dance student – it didn’t suit me, and so I spent the weekend watching episodes of The Simpsons in my hotel room. At age 16, I spent a summer at CSSSA/InnerSpark, which is a summer arts program for high school students at CalArts, the college that Walt Disney founded in Valencia, CA. The dance program was 6 weeks of daily technique courses in movement foundations, wellness, folk dances, dance history, the choreographic process, and performance. I’ve never really gravitated toward fellow dancers as friends in a social sense – in fact, dancers are a social enigma to my brain even now. CSSSA is an amazing cross-disciplinary experience. I went to every film and animation showing I could in those 6 weeks, as a secret lifelong cinema nerd. Finding friendships among filmmakers was meaningful because I could deep-dive facts on sound design, directors, costume designers, editing, special effects, and more – and none of those conversations were very welcome among the dancers I knew at the time. I had 2 wonderful summers at CSSSA before moving to Seattle, and becoming a dance major at Cornish College of the Arts.
The Cornish dance program was, for me, a precision fit. I pursued a BFA in Dance with an emphasis on Teaching, knowing from the start that I wanted to use my degree to become a teacher. While at Cornish, I had a lot of support from professors who encouraged me to use my photo and video skills for choreography projects, performances and for the school’s dance archive. I took some amazing film classes as well. I got a start in understanding film production, but the class that was most nostalgic and meaningful was called Survey of Animation. Every Friday, I sat with a few classmates in the basement of our campus, and we watched cartoons, and we discussed. So much of animation relies on both understanding laws of gravity and motion, and equally disrupting those laws. It was formative, for certain.
After graduating, I went to UC Irvine to pursue my MFA in Dance. The plan was to aim for a job teaching in higher education, but there were three major interruptions to that idea. For starters, the dance department at Cornish, a private college, was so unlike the dance department at a public university. I struggled alongside adjunct faculty to balance workloads, seeing how their employment contracts bound their time in so many ways that they couldn’t build trust with their students. There simply was not enough time in a quarter to attend to committees, grad students, clubs, and their own creative work, plus with a requirement to do projects out of the country every year, most of the faculty didn’t even memorize students’ names on roll sheets. The second rupture was my thesis topic. I researched ways for student modern dancers and skateboarders to collaborate physically and culturally. When I took my topic to my grad advisor, her response was “Skateboarders are typically very low-income, aren’t they?” I replied, “Aren’t dancers?” That was the start of an unraveling for me within the department. The third challenge was PTSD. I was suffering, and also punishing myself for how challenging everything felt. The equation was unbalanced, and unsolvable. I dropped out, 11 credits shy of attaining my MFA. I passed every class, but revoked my thesis project. I didn’t want UC Irvine’s name on it, and I was personally lost.
I got found at skateboard camp. Woodward West, an action sports summer camp, located in the mountains outside Bakersfield, California, set my life in a whole different orbit. First I taught dance to gymnastics students, then I was the GoPro girl, responsible for strapping small action cameras to kids flying off Mega Ramps. Later, I became a camp photographer, and even lived at camp in the off-season to help with special events. I met my husband, Skyler, at camp, and I fell in love with him while watching him shred a vert ramp. Skateboarding, and skate films, undid a lot of stuck thinking for me about movement languages, about how to relate with other movers in a space, about the definition of a body, a tool, a skatepark, a stage. In this chapter, I realized that it was ok that I’d never fit in with dancers. My identity as a dancer wasn’t defined by the other dancers in my orbit. My identity as a movement and visual artist was defined by what I could see, what I could make, and how I could evolve.
Skyler and I moved to Utah in 2012, and he began pursuing a degree in film at UVU. I taught ballet at studios, and loved every minute with my students. My teaching style is a blend – a little Bill Nye, a little Hermione. I first volunteered for the Utah Dance Film Festival in 2016 after Skyler entered a film to the festival, and I grew from Outreach to Education to Festival Director. Every year, I watch around 300 dance films, and work with a global jury to determine official selections. I organize an event with screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony, and the 2023 festival will be the tenth. I am also a live performance dance photographer, and travel the country shooting photos for dance competitions and performances, specializing in small modern dance companies, and high school dance companies. I have an awesome little family, with a daughter who is skilled with cameras, skateboards, ballet and relentless humor. I built a dance competition in Provo with a friend – she is the visionary, and I do all the web and graphic design, the registration and judging systems, and all the photography. Momentum Dance Competition is coming up on year 4, and my inner jazzerina child is really surprised that I built a competition, and also how easy it is to create equity in dance competition systems and technologies if you care deeply and genuinely about student dancers above all else. Living in Utah was definitely not something I expected from my life’s story arc, but it has been a beautiful journey.
~TAKEN FROM VOYAGE UTAH, https://voyageutah.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-katie-bruce-sorenson/
My story with dance began around age 4 when my parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class. Anytime music played in the gym, I danced, and paid no attention to the task at hand. I was enrolled in jazz technique classes so quickly, and that was my foundation of early learning in dance. I only went to one competition as a young dance student – it didn’t suit me, and so I spent the weekend watching episodes of The Simpsons in my hotel room. At age 16, I spent a summer at CSSSA/InnerSpark, which is a summer arts program for high school students at CalArts, the college that Walt Disney founded in Valencia, CA. The dance program was 6 weeks of daily technique courses in movement foundations, wellness, folk dances, dance history, the choreographic process, and performance. I’ve never really gravitated toward fellow dancers as friends in a social sense – in fact, dancers are a social enigma to my brain even now. CSSSA is an amazing cross-disciplinary experience. I went to every film and animation showing I could in those 6 weeks, as a secret lifelong cinema nerd. Finding friendships among filmmakers was meaningful because I could deep-dive facts on sound design, directors, costume designers, editing, special effects, and more – and none of those conversations were very welcome among the dancers I knew at the time. I had 2 wonderful summers at CSSSA before moving to Seattle, and becoming a dance major at Cornish College of the Arts.
The Cornish dance program was, for me, a precision fit. I pursued a BFA in Dance with an emphasis on Teaching, knowing from the start that I wanted to use my degree to become a teacher. While at Cornish, I had a lot of support from professors who encouraged me to use my photo and video skills for choreography projects, performances and for the school’s dance archive. I took some amazing film classes as well. I got a start in understanding film production, but the class that was most nostalgic and meaningful was called Survey of Animation. Every Friday, I sat with a few classmates in the basement of our campus, and we watched cartoons, and we discussed. So much of animation relies on both understanding laws of gravity and motion, and equally disrupting those laws. It was formative, for certain.
After graduating, I went to UC Irvine to pursue my MFA in Dance. The plan was to aim for a job teaching in higher education, but there were three major interruptions to that idea. For starters, the dance department at Cornish, a private college, was so unlike the dance department at a public university. I struggled alongside adjunct faculty to balance workloads, seeing how their employment contracts bound their time in so many ways that they couldn’t build trust with their students. There simply was not enough time in a quarter to attend to committees, grad students, clubs, and their own creative work, plus with a requirement to do projects out of the country every year, most of the faculty didn’t even memorize students’ names on roll sheets. The second rupture was my thesis topic. I researched ways for student modern dancers and skateboarders to collaborate physically and culturally. When I took my topic to my grad advisor, her response was “Skateboarders are typically very low-income, aren’t they?” I replied, “Aren’t dancers?” That was the start of an unraveling for me within the department. The third challenge was PTSD. I was suffering, and also punishing myself for how challenging everything felt. The equation was unbalanced, and unsolvable. I dropped out, 11 credits shy of attaining my MFA. I passed every class, but revoked my thesis project. I didn’t want UC Irvine’s name on it, and I was personally lost.
I got found at skateboard camp. Woodward West, an action sports summer camp, located in the mountains outside Bakersfield, California, set my life in a whole different orbit. First I taught dance to gymnastics students, then I was the GoPro girl, responsible for strapping small action cameras to kids flying off Mega Ramps. Later, I became a camp photographer, and even lived at camp in the off-season to help with special events. I met my husband, Skyler, at camp, and I fell in love with him while watching him shred a vert ramp. Skateboarding, and skate films, undid a lot of stuck thinking for me about movement languages, about how to relate with other movers in a space, about the definition of a body, a tool, a skatepark, a stage. In this chapter, I realized that it was ok that I’d never fit in with dancers. My identity as a dancer wasn’t defined by the other dancers in my orbit. My identity as a movement and visual artist was defined by what I could see, what I could make, and how I could evolve.
Skyler and I moved to Utah in 2012, and he began pursuing a degree in film at UVU. I taught ballet at studios, and loved every minute with my students. My teaching style is a blend – a little Bill Nye, a little Hermione. I first volunteered for the Utah Dance Film Festival in 2016 after Skyler entered a film to the festival, and I grew from Outreach to Education to Festival Director. Every year, I watch around 300 dance films, and work with a global jury to determine official selections. I organize an event with screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony, and the 2023 festival will be the tenth. I am also a live performance dance photographer, and travel the country shooting photos for dance competitions and performances, specializing in small modern dance companies, and high school dance companies. I have an awesome little family, with a daughter who is skilled with cameras, skateboards, ballet and relentless humor. I built a dance competition in Provo with a friend – she is the visionary, and I do all the web and graphic design, the registration and judging systems, and all the photography. Momentum Dance Competition is coming up on year 4, and my inner jazzerina child is really surprised that I built a competition, and also how easy it is to create equity in dance competition systems and technologies if you care deeply and genuinely about student dancers above all else. Living in Utah was definitely not something I expected from my life’s story arc, but it has been a beautiful journey.
~TAKEN FROM VOYAGE UTAH, https://voyageutah.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-katie-bruce-sorenson/