[sparklehouse.tv][Angela Alston] [angela at sparklehouse dot tv]

 

DREAM TIME

The seed, planted in darkness, begins to stir the earth.

1994
Movement: Elaine Dove
Camera and editing: Angela Alston
Writing: Elaine Dove
Music: John Eichenseer and Somei Satoh

 

Synopsis, Credits and History

Movement is the focus of this piece, movement improvised by the dancer and camera simultaneously. The goal was to create a sense of a microcosm in creation. Through my editing choices, I strove to combine for the audience a sense of recurrent surprise with a sense of continuity.

The four parts:
    • the dancer among pine trees, day
    • the dancer in a forest glade, night
    • the dancer in a mysterious, interior space
    • the dancer moving by and amidst water

Dream Time was shot on S-VHS and U-Matic SP tape. The footage was digitized and edited on an Avid; it was then output back to tape. Originally conceived as an interactive piece to be viewed on CD-ROM, Dream Time became a video when equipment then available to me could not produce an adequate result. I dream of producing the piece as an installation of four rooms in which looped video of each part projected on all four walls would play continuously, the viewer entering or leaving at will. On the walls of path ways connecting the rooms would be projected video of Elaine Dove reading from her Dream Time journal.

John Eichenseer wrote the rich aural textures, with additional music by Somei Satoh.

The video has screened in the Dallas Video Festival, the 5th Mondiale de la Video in Brussels, New York International Video and New Media Festival, a young filmmakers screening at Brooklyn College sponsored by the Dance on Camera Festival, and at art galleries in Austin, TX, and Tulsa, OK.

 

Dream Time was produced in the Masters of Fine Arts program in the Department of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. I wish to express my gratitude to N.H. Cominos for his unflagging support and unequaled editorial advice. Thanks also to the ACTLab and Allucquere Roseanne Stone, where I produced the interactive project preceding the video.

Bios

Producer/Director/Principal Camera — Angela Alston has a long-standing interest in filming movement. Alston has received support for her work from Women in Film/Dallas, the Hattie M. Strong Foundation, the Liberace Foundation, the Shell Oil Company Foundation, and the University of Texas. She has an M.F.A. in film and video production from the University of Texas at Austin, and studied photography at the Factory School of Visual Art in Seattle. A eager student of movement and theater herself, her teachers include Kathy Dunn Hamrick, Sheila Gordon, Cynthia Allison, and Lee Devin.

Choreographer/Dancer — Elaine Dove began her artistic training in early childhood with the study of music and creative writing. She began to dance at age 15. Over the last few years, she has pursued the study of sculpture and other visual arts, with an interest in fusing traditional art forms into new kinds of work. Her work has been presented at theaters and galleries in Austin. Dove was art director for The Weeping Woman: Tales of La Llorona. Dove also choreographed Lament.

 


 

Copyright 2000, 2001 Angela Alston, All Rights Reserved

 

 

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