Impact Of Editing

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Maya Deren once said, “The task of cinema or any other art form is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls.” A vast difference arises between a typical dance on stage and a filmed dance which, as Deren says, “ has an effect on nerves, minds and souls.” The use of different editing techniques such as camera angles, cuts and fusing different settings together works to create a dance, transforming it into something that can only be experienced in the film form. In A Study in Choreography for the Camera(1945), by Maya Deren, editing fuses different settings together in order to create a space for the dancer and in Nine Variations on Dance Theme(1966), by Hilary Harris, editing fuses clips of the body in order to construct movement. Although each film consists of basic dance movements, the editing techniques used impact the perception of the dances, creating more intricate and detailed artworks as a result of editing. Maya Deren’s A Study in Choreography for the Camera contains different scene changes, camera angles and an array of fluid, contemporary dance movements. In black and white with no music, this short clip opens with a scene of the forest and a man, Talley Beatty, crouching amongst the trees. The camera then pans to the left and the man again stands amongst the trees. The camera continues to move to the left and culminates in a full body shot of the dancer with the sky and scattered trees behind him. As the dancer lifts his leg in a circular motion, the scene shifts from the woods into a house. Beatty proceeds to dance through the house and during a spin, the scene transitions again into a museum where sculptures stand in the background. His movements are now more staccato and less continuous and fluent. He quickly dances around the

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