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Elements of Contemporary Dance BLINK

Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company presented the film BLINK in 2018. The

dance film accounts for a woman who blindly grasps to find her way through a journey full of

darkness. The dance is filmed in one continuous shot and uses the language of dance to showcase

a universal life journey. BLINK is a series of collaborations between Nathan Kim and the

contemporary dance company of Los Angeles, and Genevieve Carson directs the artistry.

The theme of the dance is about the human experience. Although our interactions with

others influence human experience, it is primarily a solitary endeavour. We come to this world

alone, and we depart from this world alone. However, the messy and beautiful chaos of the

universe is what defines us. The dance is captured in a singular, fluid, rotating shot. The dancer's

world materializes and crashes into itself, showcasing the beauty of our imperfections that exist

every day within our unravelling realities. The project is a recent masterpiece of filmmakers

Nathan Kim and dance choreographer and director Genevieve Carson. The two have approached

the film with purposeful vulnerability, trust and exploration, and the result is a work of art that

breathes and lives with raw and unfiltered originality.

The dark and lingering film BLINK begins with a quote by Mumbai based poet Khan. A

woman is then seen walking backwards into a dark abyss with her eyes closed. This raises a lot

of questions for the audience. Is the woman dreaming, or is she remembering and searching her

past to understand her current state? Or is she questioning? This woman, who is the film's main
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character, also encounters other dance characters throughout the film who play different roles

within her life, influencing her human experience.

The dance is choreographed in the accompaniment of extraordinary beautiful

instrumental music composed by Ezio Bosso, to whom the film is dedicated. The background

music features the sounds of a piano, the bass, and a violin in perfect harmony, invoking

different emotions in the audience. Carson, the cinematographer, has created an evocative work

of art in the film BLINK that utilizes movement and not dance phrases to guide the audience

through the films primary character emotions. The refined technique also brings together

essential elements of contemporary dance, including legwork and torso coordination, spatial

awareness, rhythmic accuracy and erratic changes in direction and speed of movement.

The director Nathan Kim has presented a beautifully crafted camera work that draws the

audience into the dance, and the viewers become the observers and the observed. The film

BLINK is full of social and personal struggles, and the camera's movement is never still. This is

an essential aspect of the film as it creates unrest rather than just fill up space and time. The

director's gestures entangle, torment and support its characters. The director of cinematography

interweaves the bodies and gestures of the characters, and with the aid of the film's director Kim,

absorbs the audience and the film's characters to experience all the emotions of life without

resolution or judgment.

As the film nears its end, there is a breathtaking moment whereby there is an intense,

physical and emotional involvement between the film's entire cast. The camera circles the whole

cast and then zooms in on the group as they come together. At this moment, their body gestures

indicate a longing for something. The entire human race has come together as one in the

universal quest for the meaning of life.

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Unlike other traditional dance forms, the contemporary dance BLINK is not bound by the

rules and rigidity. The characters in the film can transform their performance based on their

interpretations. This has been achieved throughout the film using techniques such as

emphasizing strong ballet influenced leg movements, fall and recovery, floor work and other

improvisational elements. The dance is performed barefoot to allow the dancers more fluidity in

movement and connection to the dance surface.

The improvisational elements allow fluidity of the dancers and give the creative freedom

to perform the piece with emotion that they can identify with. BLINK's versatility enables the

dancers to utilize the theme or storyline and music to form the character's theatrical performance,

which goes against the more traditional methods of storytelling.

The film also utilizes the elements of space which refers to how the dancers exercise their

freedom of movement and their interaction with the physical world. BLINK is a three-

dimensional art form where the dancers move sideways, forward, backwards and diagonally. All

their movements imply different gestures. The dancers' body is positioned chiefly to face the

audience, and the dance follows a rhythmic pattern as the characters’ travel through space.

Mostly the dancers have one foot on the floor. They sometimes lie on the floor and also leap high

above it, movements that define the use of space in dance.

To conclude, we can say that the contemporary dance BLINK is a stunning work of

choreography and movement and is also technically astonishing. The creative piece was filmed

in one take in a barely lit warehouse to produce a mesmerizing effect on the audience. Dancer

movement in and out of the light as the camera moves around them while accompanied by a

gorgeous piece of music works harmoniously together to intrigue the audience and evokes
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different feelings. Contemporary dance portrays the world through the eyes of the dancer, their

stories, experiences and emotions.

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Works Cited

LAContemporaryDance. “BLINK: A Dance Film | L.A. Contemporary Dance.” YouTube,

YouTube, 30 June 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT3IGD8IuHU.