Postcard from Paris

U-M dancer/choreographer Peter Sparling explores dance & technology while living in France

Since September, I have been living and working in Paris at the Cité Internationale des Arts, exploring and writing about dance and the connection — and possibilities — with technology. My extraordinary study continues through the end of the year.

I am documenting my experience on my “Open Studio,” a website http://www.petersparling.com/

The direct link to the video journal is http://www.petersparling.com/index.php/current_work/

I am here at an extraordinary center for 270 composers, musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, dancers and video artists from all over the world. One of my projects is to create a “Videojournal de Paris” which documents and contextualizes my daily video work. A month into my stay, I’ve accumulated a series of screendances that explore motion, framing, and the extraordinary images that I find everywhere around me. They are embedded in my journal entries, which include reflections on the work and their inspirations.

While in Paris, I am also seeing dance performances and writing articles about them for Ballet Review, and American Journal on Dance.

I presented my screendances at the Cité Auditorium on Nov. 2, and have been invited to Lisbon Dec, 7-11 for the InShadow International Festival of Video, Performance and Technologies. At the festival, I will give day-long workshop, entitled Fundamental Relationships of Camera and Body: A Screendancer’s Guide, and serve on the international jury for the screendance video competition.

Please let me know what you think of the open studio and video journal.

Peter Sparling is a professor of dance in the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. This article originally appeared on Montage, the University’s arts portal.