Project1: Enshroud

Subject: Alex Cottone

Project1 Time: 7hrs

Project52 Time: 7hrs

Project1 was a collaboration between myself and a long-time Lunger Alex Cottone. It is a short film exploring the ideas of covering, wrapping, and crumbing. I didn't want to be too deep or profound with this I simply wanted to give the viewer a chance to see movement that is structural and not necessarily emotive. I find it interesting that there is still emotional content even though the directives during creation had only structural and time-based information.

We started with Alex creating 8 structures, we then had him create transitions between structures that I randomly called out. From here we started playing with different insertions in the phrase like adding pivot points, dramatic directional shifts, and repeats. At this point, I had Alex insert a phrase I had created into his phrase in various places. Once the phrase was developed we started to "crumble" certain shapes and add in moments of suspended time. After all of these phases were complete his material was locked in and it was time to shoot. We spent a total of 5 hours to develop material.

The next day we rented a studio, developed the idea of the space, created the space and shot the footage in only 2 hours. With the help of Ashley Robicheaux and Ross Katen, we were able to do this all fairly quickly. We played with Alex's material and shot it from different angles and then started to play with he plastic a bit with some ideas of wrapping and covering almost to a suffocating point. The trickiest part was finding lighting that would still show the shapes we wanted to see but also be dark and heavy enough to achieve the look we wanted.

Overall, I''m very satisfied with the ease and speed of this project. Can't wait for Project2! 01.14.13.

Billy Bell | Artistic Director

Fitted for the 40's!

Welcome to the team...

Every new work is more than just choreography, the success of the project largely depends on the coordination of all of the collaborating artists. Costuming is one of the most effective ways to transport an audience into a time period. As our entire New Creation is set in the 1930's-1940's I felt it was necessary to bring in a Costume Designer with a lot of experience in creating characters. This leads me to introducing Marion Talan! Marion is an incredible designer who I met when I attended The Juilliard School, where she currently works designing costumes for dance, opera, and theater. She has worked on many interesting projects as well as with the Merce Cunningham Company. I am very excited to be sharing this project with Marion and her amazing talents.

Playing Dress Up

One of the first steps other than fitting the dancers, was for Marion to throw some dresses on one of our dancers and discuss with me which of the cuts and shapes we like the best. We went into the Juilliard stock and played drew up for a while. Shelby was loving being put into all of the dresses. Not all of them were fit for her obviously, but we were looking still to see patterns and types of dresses. Tell us your thoughts in the comments below! Which one is your favorite? Here are the results: 

(excuse the poor picture quality from my phone)

Commission #1

The time has come for YOU to participate and create! As part of the Lunge Dance Collective Creation Blog, I will be submitting a number of Commissions that I will need completed in order to aid in the development of Lunge's 2012 New Creation. This is the opportunity for you as an audience to help control and influence what the final product that ends up on stage will look like. Anyone can take part and reply to the Commission by simply leaving your contribution as a comment below! 

Commission #1

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So here's the challenge: I am currently seeking stock footage from any film (silent or talkies) from the 1920's to the 1950's to serve as inspiration and maybe even incorporated into the New Creation as projection. We need film and LOTS of it! 

Details: To submit please a working link to the video, the title of the film, the year the film was created, and any other information you have on the scene or clip. I am looking for EVERYTHING! Hollywood kisses, fainting, dance scenes, technicolor, cartoons, Nosferatu, fight scenes, westerns, I want it all! Don't be afraid to submit multiple clips!

PRIZES!!! Oh yes! There are prizes! My favorite video clip will receive a free Lunge Dance Collective t-shirt mailed to your front door! As well as a badass picture of some Lungers kicking butt!


So those are the guidelines, now get to searching!!! The best clip will be decided on March16th. Cant wait to see what you all come up with! If you have any questions please post as a comment and I'll respond as soon as I can! Thanks for your collaboration!


~ Billy