Screendance – two presentations

Some time ago, the archives of two editions of the International Screendance Symposium – were published – symposiums from 2000 and in 2022 – both chaired by pioneer and dance filmmaker Douglas Rosenberg.
The symposium was hosted in Lathrop Hall, the H’Doubler Theater which is home to the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It is North-America’s first university for dance. It is also an important center for screen dance/dance film.
At the 2000 Symposium you met passionate dance filmmakers, activists, educators and researchers such as Sally Banes, Ellen Bromberg, Noel Carrol, Amy Greenfield, Nuria Font, Eliot Caplan, Daniel Nagrin, Li Chiao Ping, Silvina Szperling, Elaine Summer, Laura Taler, Deirdre Towers et al. At the 2022 Symposium you met as passionate screendance people: Harmony Bench, Claudia Kappenberg, Ann Cooper Albright, Gabri Christa, Omari ‘Motion’ Carter, Charlotte Griffin, Li Chiao Ping, Katrina McPherson, Marisa Zanotti, Cara Hagan, Chad Michael Hall, Robin Gee and many more. Dance film icons Becky Edmunds, Dianne Reid (Australia) and Silvina Szperling (Argentina) attended via Zoom.

Ami Skånberg was one of the few participants who participated in both symposia. Here you can hear what she spoke about twenty-three years ago:

Documentation of Ami Skånberg’s presentation at H’Doubler Theater, University of Wisconsin-Madison 2000

Here you can hear what she spoke about one year ago:
Documentation of Ami Skånberg’s presentation at H’Doubler Theater, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022

Screendance festivals in Sweden
Sweden now has two dance film festivals:
Screendance Festival i Stockholm directed by screendance maker and choreographer Cyntia Bothello
and
Dansfilmfestivalen i Göteborg directed by screendance maker and choreographer Benedikte Esperi.

Screendance in education
In 2014, Skånberg wrote an article for Writing Movement, which was published in International Journal of Screendance about the importance of education of screendance for choreographers, directors, dancers and teachers. She was tired of trying to get the filmindustry to accept and support screendance, and searched for a different focus on bodies and narrative in the film medium. Today, she would like to claim that screen dance is its own genre, and that it is situated closer to dance art, visual art and experimental film than the film industry.

From autumn 2022 you can read the course Dansfilm inom dansutbildning at the Academy of Music and Drama at University of Gothenburg. Ami Skånberg, Ninnie Andersson and Karin Rickardsson took the initiative to implement it as a 7,5 credit course. In addition, Benedikte Esperi and Skånberg are teachers in the course. It is given as an independent course as well as a program course for the Dance Teacher Program in Dance at the University of Gothenburg.

Skånberg also plans to arrange an International Screendance Symposium at Stockholm University of the Arts in 2025. Keep your eyes and ears open!