DEUS EX MACHINA: A CHOREO-CINEMATOGRAPHIC PLOT

ADEBAYO ADENIYI.

E-MAIL: adebayomoyosoredans@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the collaboration, interplay and conflict between the camera and the dancers‟ body
in order to explore the tendencies and overlaps in this co-existence. My interest lies in the relationship
between the body and technology in any form of mediation or intermediality, especially with the camera.
The analysis of this work will be majorly from a dance video “Lost in Motion II” directed by Ben
Shirinian, choreographed by Guillaume Cote, performed by Heather Ogden, cinematographed by Jeremy
Benning and edited by Jon Devries. The analysis of the paper will be made through a comparative
analysis of the final production (video) and the process 'CGI VFX Behind the Scenes "The making of
Lost in Motion II" by KLP' in order to establish and back up my arguments for this investigation. The
questions that will be explored by this paper will be; is this collaboration [camera and body] actually a
dialogue? If it is a dialogue, can it be said to be democratic? Is there an issue of power relations or
hierarchy between the dancer and the camera or filmmaker? If so, where does the power lie, the body or
the camera? Has choreography become a victim to/of cinematography? From the Greek origin of the
phrase, “deus ex machina” can the camera or other forms of technological mediation (editing) be said to
be the 21st-century deus ex machina for or on the dancer? How does this mediation affect audience
perceptions and aesthetic judgments? I will draw from existing literature, a reflexive account of my
personal experiences from watching these videos and also from my participation in a practical project
showcased by my colleague at Roehampton University.

Keywords: Dance, collaboration, mediation, body, camera, narcissism, deus ex machina, editing, power.

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INTRODUCTION

“In his beautiful edit, we became [beautifully shot] dancers, not the artists who were responsible
for the concept” (Otake, 2002: 87)

It takes two to tango. However, in some Ballroom and Latin dances, there have also been
debates on power or hierarchy, equality as well as gender debates. Some say the male dancers are
the ones in control and female dancers are just recipients of the control or lead from the male
dancers while others argue the opposite or equal participation. Here cinematography and
choreography have taken the stage to tango and it is yet to decide if there is a lead character here
or it's equal participation. When you watch a dancer or dance routine being recorded and edited
it is hard to figure out what exactly to appreciate, the dancer, editor or both (equally).

Apparently, the choreographer and dancer that worked on the piece “Lost in Motion II”1 did a
great job. I found it quite intriguing when I watched „the making‟ of the same video after I had
watched the finished work first. Rodrigo‟s (2012:66, 67) words in reaction to Krauss‟ (1976)
article helps to further explain what I had witnessed as he argues that,

these artists do not perform for the camera; they perform with it (including its related
devices)…Their work constitutes a new kind of performance art, one at the crossroads of
the body and the media, which operates on the various mediation that emerges from
it‟.Technology has become a partner; it is no longer a witness of actions and movements
developed outside its realm.

With these points raised in a recently published article by Rodrigo as a reaction or a critique of
Krauss‟ earlier work, I would like to situate them in the very parlance of existing parameters of
what I term the „deus ex machina’ in the 21st-century dance, the dancers body and the camera.
Going back to the above quote by Otake (2002) it keeps me overly worried about the role of
technology in dance or other bodily practices as I have also argued elsewhere, Adeniyi (2018) on
Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR) in football and the removal of subjectivity and spontaneity to
the game. Here the focus is on the dancer, and the technologies used to mediate his or her art.

1
Lost in Motion II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxl3AuL3_Qs
Lost in Motion II (The making) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_KOaiVAG0

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DANCE ON SCREEN/CAMERA: DEUS EX MACHINA (GOD IN/FROM A MACHINE)

The term deus ex machina can be traced back to Ancient Greek tragedies as a plot device to
solve seemingly unsolvable situations by bringing actors playing the role of gods on stage either
by a riser or a crane. How then does this apply to choreography and cinematography? Directors,
filmmakers and cinematographers have ideas in their heads that they want to bring to life.
However, it seems that the level of technological advancement now makes a dancer play catch
up with technology. When there are certain images or ideas that the body cannot achieve in real
time, the dancer is stuck, in an unsolvable situation and then technology steps in as deus ex
machina to solve the problem thereby creating “saltator 2ex machina”.

Several dance scholars have argued that screen dance 3 is a hybrid site that merges two distinct
disciplines, dance and film in a two-way conversation. However, in order to examine this
interplay, to show that the relationship between dance and camera has its challenges, I will start
with Roberts (2012:107) who says;

“To start with, what is the difference between a piece of film action (as when, in a cinema film, a
woman opens the door and goes through it), and a danced movement which might look just the
same?”

Roberts is concerned with the art of dance and its immediacy which he believes has been
affected by the “mediacy” of the filmic art. Here Roberts buttresses the power of editing,
manipulating the exactness of what the dancing body can do or has done by altering, space,
movement, amongst other things, even time. “Time in a film is not about what the body can do,
but about what the eye, free of position, can do. The camera can be anywhere and (for lack of a
better word) anywhen” (ibid). Then there arises the question, has technology come to save the
dancing body from what it could not physically achieve? Taking the term „deus ex machina’
from its etymological source, Roberts‟ earlier question and my video example, it seems more

2
Saltator is a latin word which means dancer.
3
Screen dance, dance on camera, dance in films/videos are interchangeably used to cover a wide range of
overlapping topics

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likely for this whole interaction to still be a trait of narcissism with a lot of power and political
baggage with an ambiguous undertone of compatibility and coexistence. If you take your time to
watch the video “Lost in Motion II” and the making of it, this seems more of a speech or
instruction from the camera and edit than an actual dialogue; it is actually now about the camera
and not the body in it. It is not just a device that serves as an extension of the human body and it
is no longer just a witness.

The dancer pursues a certain technique for reforming the body and the body seems to conform
to the instructions given. Yet suddenly, inexplicably, it diverges from expectations, reveals
new dimensions and mutely declares its unwillingness or inability to execute commands.
Brief moments of “mastery of the body” or of “feeling at one with the body” occur, producing
a kind of ecstasy that motivates the dancer to continue. (Foster, 1997:237)
The dancing body in its vast abilities acquired by training or practice has the capacity to do
various things as well as its limits. However, what happens when all of the training, practice and
presence are “Lost in Motion, II (2013)?” This work, as mentioned earlier is a dance piece
choreographed by Guillaume Côté and performed by Heather Ogden. However, “I had also been
provoked by what I believe to be a fundamental misconception about film. How can you marvel
at the human body in motion if the rhythm and movement are created by the editor and not the
dancer?”(Bilson in Roberts 2012: 107).

I have seen these videos a number of times and I wonder if what catches my attention is really
the ideal body of the dancer, the beautiful choreography or the execution of the routines. In
actual sense, none of these comes to mind in the assessment of this piece; the editing gets more
prominence than the technical ability of the dancer. In the edit just like Otake‟s words, Ogden
was just [another beautifully shot dancer].

The director, Ben Shirinian confirms my argument when he says „On the concept behind the
film, I wanted to create a setting that truly embodied and visually represented feelings of
vulnerability, loneliness, danger, and beauty all at once‟.

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Figure 1: Lost in Motion II 2013 choreographed by Guillaume Côté performed by Heather Ogden (real apace on the left and
final edit on the right). Screenshot by Adebayo Adeniyi from YouTube Source.

However, one very important factor to be considered is the fact that the perception of the dancer
and the dancing body remained flat or passive as I noticed even in the directors words „I wanted
to create a setting‟, it was about the environment, the camera, edit but not so much of the dancer.
The dancer was just a mere appendage that adds to this creation of setting, like a prop used by an
actor. The scenery/setting is very sophisticated with the use of „green screen‟ and CGI
(Computer Generated Image) at the centre of attention and attraction which comes before the
dancing and this tilts towards more of the aesthetics or the “choreography of editing”. Therefore,
the use of slow motions, change of scenery, exaggeration, alteration of reality seen in this video
also present in other forms of dance on screen, seem to suggest that the camera has come to
rescue the human body from things it cannot do in real time and real space. Therefore, the
translation of the term deus ex-machina (god in the machine) as in ancient Greek theatre, the
camera serves as the superior force that rescues the dancer/dancing body (the protagonist) from
uncontrollable situations or expectations required of it that it cannot get out, perform or solve on
its own. In this rescue mission lies the camera at the centre stage, the “machina” [camera/editor],
the political and narcissist tendencies on the dancer.

THE POWER SHIFT

When the camera‟s movement and our movement do not relate, the result appears
uninteresting. For example, when the camera moves too quickly, we as subjects become
“tame” and lose our integrity. On the other hand, when Koma and I exhibit movement while
the camera is too passive, viewers are left detached… However, when “just right” is too tight,
the relationship between camera and body can become overly intimate, like a very exclusive
duet. Then a viewer loses her own entry point. (Otake, 2002: 83).

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Figure 2: Mediated Choreography, Module Performances Roehampton University 2018, ‘Embodying Camera Manipulations’.
Screenshot from the VLC media player. Photo Credit. Adebayo, ADENIYI.

As I have established my arguments on editing, perception, conflict, narcissism and „deus ex

machina‟, I will like to draw on the presentation titled “Embodying camera manipulations” 4
showcased during a practical class I was involved in. The choreographer, Ssemaganda (2018)
recorded a dancer with a camera, and during his presentation, cut out carton papers in the shape
of a full head-mounted camera with each person wearing one, he placed several persons in
different fixed positions with the instruction that the dancer will perform across the space and
each person wearing the head-mounted camera can only view what comes into his or her frame
with no rotation or decision by the camera. The dancer performed throughout the piece, making
decisions on what frame to appear and what type of shot she wanted. She could appear in
medium shots, close up, overhead, while the camera (cardboard worn on the heads) just stayed
glued to a fixed position. Being a part of the exercise, I asked for feedback from my other
colleagues and the responses were amazing. The people who wore the head-mounted cameras,
felt very frustrated whenever the dancer was not in their frame, with their head-mounted cameras
looking at an empty space, waiting for its turn, one of them said “ I was just looking at the lights,
4
Embodying camera manipulations https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jg499d_YW7tfwGwCxQEw_a-
p0mWpycFZ/view?ts=5abc2f18

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because that was where my position was facing” (Siri, 2018). However, I was part of the other
half of the audience that had no camera on. I found out that we also could not stay glued to
standing behind one frame since one frame could not capture the entirety of the dancers‟
mobility, so we were moving to the frames whenever the dancer decides to move. We did not
want to miss any of the action. This revealed to me how much power, the camera and editing had
on its subject “the dancer” and what our eyes as audience/consumers want to see, also how
difficult it seems if the roles were to switch, tilting the scale of power relations and decision
making back to the dancing body. Contrary to how Otake (2014) felt like being a [beautifully
shot dancer], this exercise, gave the dance the ownership of her own artistic creativity, with the
camera just there to document or witness it.

DEMYSTIFICATION

Camera movement is another hotly contested area that depends on style. Reacting against the
roving camera and kaleidoscopic overhead shots of Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire famously
stated, “Either the camera will dance or I will.” He firmly believed in the integrity of the
choreography and the dancer‟s performance, whereas Berkeley was notorious for creating
revolutionary cinematic techniques, the most famous being his signature kaleidoscopic
overhead shot. Astaire and Berkeley‟s differences sum up one of the conundrums facing the
dance filmmaker: Which will move, the dancer or the camera? (Siebens, 2002:221)

This paper has gone through different processes of the dancing body and the camera presence,
with its many crossroads, all leading to the point of the narcissist nature of the camera
(personified), on the dancers body garnished with a lot of political undertone to achieve its aims
of stereotyping, or pretending to be just a witness or an extension of the dancing body. It then
also turns the dancing body away from its real tendencies to suit its own fictional gaze and then
returns as the saviour to the same dancing body as its 21st-century deus ex machina. Although, it
could also be argued that this stereotype is not just from the camera, which has been the focus of
this paper, it can be from the human audience and eye itself wanting a consumption of “more”, a
sophisticated and perfect appeal of itself in the documentation of the camera, the “selfie
syndrome”. This I think will be another research to be further explored for critical assessment
and analysis as this paper has attempted to do. The camera, screen, film and editing apparatus,
were created by man, now it is recreating its creator. I have attempted to demystify the camera
from its exalted status and purge it of all its sense of mystification as (Otake, 2002:87) puts it

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that „we are no longer resistant to adventurous camera work, sophisticated tools, and elaborate
editing, as long as we can decide how to use or ignore them”.

The dancer doesn‟t always need to be “treated” by the camera or the editor, in order to fit into the
required, but be true to itself, not always portray the dancer as a “given” or a perfect body, just
like the Aristotelian tenets of tragedy where he exalted the noble status, sublime use of language,
where the plot is more important than its characters, all of these resemble the camera treatment
of the dancer. The dancer shouldn‟t be made for this Aristotelian aesthetic value by the presence
of the camera trying to aim perfection “to be” in order to appeal to our visual and emotional
senses. The dancer should be allowed to be a “process” capable of living in the reality of “being”
with all its uncertain tendencies of multiple realities. The dancer should not try to attain a sense
of sophisticated aesthetic euphoria as Roberts (2012:113) says,

I have always supposed that we find something most beautiful when there is the promise of
more, of the thing we look at being never quite exhausted after any number of encounters.
Our eyes love a beautiful thing because they “remain fixed on what remains veiled, even
after the unveiling. Dance-film, I feel, should offer something like that: something hanging
between the veiling and unveiling, something above all that resists the eternal temptation to
see all, to rip open and to see into the holy of holies. “Your film must resemble what you
see on shutting your eyes.
Concluding my argument, I am of the opinion that, dance on camera should be an attempt to
record reality or actuality and there should be a fair exchange between the camera and the
dancing body as the camera is a useful tool for the dancer in whatever genre or style, but to do
that, the camera and editor must allow the body be true to itself. As I like to end with my on
reconstruction and appropriation of „Bohannons‟(2011) words that, someday in the deep future a
technology of persuasion even more sophisticated than the camera, maybe invented rendering the
dancing body unnecessary as tools of rhetoric. I trust that by that day we will have passed this
present discourse of narcissism, ex-machina, politics and power, perhaps by then, we will be able
to afford the luxury, with no other purpose than witnessing the human body in motion and true to
itself.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adam, R. (2012) Notes on Filming Dances, The International Journal for Screendance. Parallel
Press University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Madison Wisconsin p.107-113.

Alonso R. (2012) “The Kraussian Condition of the Medium” The International Journal for
Screendance Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Madison
Wisconsin. p.66-67

Foster, S. (1997). Dancing Bodies,” in Meaning and Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, ed.
Jane Desmond. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 235–57. (Originally pub. in Incorporations
(Zone 6), ed. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter. Cambridge, MA: Zone/MIT Press, 1992: p.
480–95.
Krauss R. 1976 Video: Aesthetics of Narcissism, October volume 1, p 50-64.

Otake E. 2002 „A Dancer Behind the Lens‟, in, Mitoma J. (ed.) Envisioning Dance on Film and
Video.

Siebens, Evann E 2002. „Dancing With the Camera: The Dance Cinematographer‟, in Mitoma,
J.(ed.) Envisioning Dance on Film and Video.

OTHER CITATIONS AND READINGS

Blakeney M. (2016) The Social Etiquette and Politics of Dance. Google retrieved December 15

Candelario R. (2014), Bodies, Site, Screen: Eiko and Koma‟s Dance for Camera, International
Journal for Screen dance Ohio State University Libraries p.80-92.

Dodds S. (2001) Dance on Screen: Genres from Hollywood to Experimental Arts, Palgrave.

Gore G. (2010) Flashmob Dance and the Territorialization of urban movement. Anthropological
Notebooks 16 (3) p 125-13.

Video Links.

Strange Fruit: So You Think You Can Dance (Season 14 episode 10 all stars), accessed on 5th
March 2018
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq2kWBrMLuI

Lost in Motion II accessed on 28th February 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxl3AuL3_Qs

Lost in Motion II (The making) accessed on 28th February 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_KOaiVAG0

Bohannon J and Black Label Movement (2011). Dance your PhD „Ted Talk Brussels’ accessed
on 28th February 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlDWRZ7IYqw

Ssemaganda G. (2018) „Embodying camera manipulations‟, Mediated Choreography Module

performance. Department of Dance, University of Roehampton, London. Accessed on 28 th
March 2018

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jg499d_YW7tfwGwCxQEw_a-p0mWpycFZ/view?ts=5abc2f18

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