Film Archive

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Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Attention! … Painting
Attention! … Painting
Mieczysław Waśkowski
Originally intended as a documentation of Tadeusz Kantor’s “informal painting”, the film develops a life of its own: The abstract form-finding itself becomes the movie star.
Filmstill Attention! … Painting

Attention! … Painting

Uwaga! … malarstwo
Mieczysław Waśkowski
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Animated Film
Poland
1957
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Intended as a documentation of Polish artist and theatre-maker Tadeusz Kantor’s “informal painting”, Mieczysław Waśkowski’s film develops a hectic experimental life of its own. The gestural application of paint is staged on changing spatial levels by means of glass plates, camera movements and lighting, making not the painter but the abstract form-finding the movie star.

Robert Seidel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mieczysław Waśkowski
Cinematographer
Antoni Nurzyński
Producer
The Polish National Film School in Łódź
Sound
Józef Bartczak
Score
Adam Kaczyński
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Cineforms
Cineforms
Andrzej Pawłowski
Soft clouds of light rotate, fan out and change colour: Pawłowski’s “Luxograms” exist only in the projection with a sophisticated system of lenses.
Filmstill Cineforms

Cineforms

Kineformy
Andrzej Pawłowski
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Performance Recording
Poland
1957
7 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Soft clouds of light rotate, fan out and change colour: With his cosmic “Luxograms”, Pawłowski radically rethinks the Lumières’ serpentine dance and dematerialises the moving body. It exists neither on a real stage nor in the shape of a real dancer but solely in the projection with a sophisticated system of optical lenses.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Andrzej Pawłowski
Producer
Andrzej Pawłowski
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill FKA twigs: How’s That
FKA twigs: How’s That
Jesse Kanda
A naked body: Its skin envelope spreads and longs to be touched. The music asks what lust feels like and is answered by enchanting computer-generated images.
Filmstill FKA twigs: How’s That

FKA twigs: How’s That

FKA twigs: How’s That
Jesse Kanda
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Animated Film
UK
2013
4 minutes
English
Subtitles: 
None

A naked body liquifies and becomes weightless. What’s left is its skin envelope which expands endlessly, longing for the tiniest touch. The increasingly shapeless figure vibrates in colours, fragments flashing, until the video track fails. The sensual piece by FKA twigs asks in slow motion what lust feels like. Jesse Kanda answers with enchanting computer-generated images.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jesse Kanda
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Floralia II
Floralia II
Sabrina Ratté
From the pictorial concept of the floral still life to a 3D archive for extinct plants: Floral sculptures add a new dimension to representation. But life? Stays still.
Filmstill Floralia II

Floralia II

Floralia II
Sabrina Ratté
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Experimental Film
Canada
2021
4 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Ratté develops the pictorial concept of the floral still life into a new kind of illusionary space. The fragmented floral sculptures, created by 3D scans, design a speculative future in which extinct plants are preserved in a weightless archive. The representation gains a dimension but does not become more than a surface mould with no informative value about the living core.

Robert Seidel

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Sabrina Ratté
Producer
Sabrina Ratté
Sound Design
Andrea-Jane Cornell
Score
Sabrina Ratté
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Free Radicals
Free Radicals
Len Lye
Flashes of dots, squiggles and lines scratched on the black leader create a space and an energy field to the rhythm of percussive African tribal music.
Filmstill Free Radicals

Free Radicals

Free Radicals
Len Lye
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Animated Film
New Zealand
1979
4 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Len Lye’s uncompromising and poetic reduction of movement to its absolute essence. Flashing dots, squiggles and lines scratched directly on the black leader, sometimes as compressed or stretched zigzags, sometimes as straight or feathered verticals. They start running, then dancing, creating in the dark void a space and energy field to the rhythm of percussive African tribal music.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Len Lye
Filmstill Hysteresis

Hysteresis

Hysteresis
Robert Seidel
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Experimental Film
Germany
2021
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The term hysteresis soberly describes a processual behaviour where the previous history affects the result as much as new changes. Robert Seidel enters analogue drawings, performance footage of the queer dancer Tsuki and pluck sounds and drones by Oval into a feedback system that reorganises time and movement in a multicoloured and sensual organic tableau.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Robert Seidel
Producer
Robert Seidel
Score
Oval
Performer
Tsuki
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Meat Joy
Meat Joy
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Dance is primarily physical, and “Meat Joy” is the cinematic essence of an unrestrained celebration of a performance improvisation, with lots of skin and set to ambiguous popular songs.
Filmstill Meat Joy

Meat Joy

Meat Joy
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Documentary Film
France
1964
11 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Dance is primarily physical. Smell, warmth, touch – “Meat Joy” presents their essence, set to a collage of ambiguous pop songs. Carolee Schneemann lets us experience from up close the unrestrained celebration of a physical, lubricious, erotic performance improvisation, using framing, montage and a visual aesthetic reminiscent of painting to dissolve the body shapes.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Pierre Dominique Gaisseau, Carolee Schneemann
Editor
Carolee Schneemann, Trevor Shimizu
Producer
Carolee Schneemann
Sound Design
Carolee Schneemann, James Tenney, Trevor Shimizu
Performer
Carolee Schneemann
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Serpentine Dance
Serpentine Dance
Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
In the early days of cinema, audiences were hungry for pictures bursting with vitality. The serpentine dance with its graceful shifting patterns, and in colour, satisfied their wish.
1897
Filmstill Serpentine Dance

Serpentine Dance

Danse serpentine
Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Documentary Film
France
1897
1 minute
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Movement, movement: In the early days of cinema, audiences were hungry for pictures bursting with vitality. For many film pioneers, the subject par excellence was the serpentine dance, which produced graceful shifting patterns by means of ample veils. The Lumière brothers additionally had the film hand-coloured, frame by frame, reinforcing the vivid expression of the dynamic body geometries.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
Cinematographer
Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
Producer
Louis Lumière, Auguste Lumière
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Filmstill Structures
Structures
Christine Schlegel
In the cultural niches of the GDR, Christine Schlegel used painted and scratched-on 8mm stock to create her very own energetic cosmos of dance performance and projection.
Filmstill Structures

Structures

Strukturen
Christine Schlegel
Dancing in the Dark 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1984
8 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Far removed from the officially propagated GDR cultural sector, Christine Schlegel created her very own energetic cosmos on 8mm stock between 1977 and 1986. She painted over or scratched lines and shapes on footage of the dancer Fine Kwiatkowski. She projected painted footage on the dancing body during live performances, enveloping and re-shaping it.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Christine Schlegel
Cinematographer
Christine Schlegel
Score
Lothar Fiedler, Hansi Noack, Gottfried Rößler
Animation
Christine Schlegel
Performer
Fine Kwiatkowski