Arc and Sound of Dance

…

An Oscar-nominated composer,
a renowned ballerina, and an international star choreographer suddenly agree to lead a hero’s journey of 15 locally celebrated but not yet globally known dancers each competing to appear in an improbable “film-first” modern dance premiere.

…

No one realizes until the very end how their unusual choreography and camerawork will revolutionize the way dance will forever be captured on film.

…

“Dancer 2”, Leonid Afremov (1955-2019); RoGallery New York

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Arc and Sound
of Dance

“Dancer 2”, Leonid Afremov (1955-2019); RoGallery New York

…

An Oscar-nominated composer, a renowned ballerina, and an international star choreographer suddenly agree to lead a hero’s journey of 15 locally celebrated but not yet globally known dancers each competing to appear in an improbable “film-first” modern dance premiere.

…

No one realizes until the very end how their unusual choreography and camerawork will revolutionize the way dance will forever be captured on film.

…

What this is all about.

What this is all about.

Read more

…“Arc and Sound of Dance” is a proposed eight episode docuseries and immersive video fusion that chronicles the creation of a first-of-its-kind 15 to 20-minute-long immersive dance and music “film-first” digital production using new-form one-shot technology to create original choreography and dance. The 8 episodes will be filmed in Manhattan, London and/or Paris, anchored in a “how-this-was-created” series ideal for streaming by a major streamer. This first-of-its-kind production marries the creative imagination of Pulitzer Prize winner composer David Lang with the talents of dance creators, some established, and others just emerging in the US, the UK, the EU, and Ukraine.

“Moderne Musik — Moderner Tanz” Karl Jakob Hirsch (Germany, 1892-1952)

…The proposed immersive video created during the filming of Arc and Sound of Dance, combined with the documentary and scripted backstories are designed to inspire both general audiences and lovers of the performing arts, all of whom have an appetite to discover a hero’s journey: “Why did they take these risks? How did they create this? What can I learn from how they did it?” 

…Carrying forward the creative focus of prize winner docuseries like “The Social Dilemma”, “Love on the Spectrum”, “America’s Sweethearts”, and “Cheer”, Arc and Sound of Dance is a human story of emotion, ambition, identity, high-stakes creativity, and technology turned on its head: freelance dancers competing to co-create a new-form screen-native work with an award-winning composer, a world-class choreographer and a world-famous ballerina featured in major dance company performances. They’re fighting for authorship, visibility, and the chance to define the future of contemporary dance. 

Anna Hop

…The docuseries will match original choreography and dance movement to David Lang compositions. The story will be recounted in a multi-episode docuseries: how and why three prize-winning creatives, Amazon Prime “Etoile” star ballerina Constance Devernay, Emmy and Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang, and European star choreographer Anna Hop, all working together for the first time, have agreed to unite with dance artists who were themselves not yet well known, all collaborating to create a compelling and arguably “impossible” 15-20 minute-long 2D video that is actually immersive and breaks through the fourth wall without VR. “Impossible” refers to the commonly-understood industry view that a 2D video cannot be immersive, and that immersiveness can be achieved in a digital video recording only by employing virtual or augmented reality technology forcing the viewer to wear VR goggles. 

Constance Devernay, photo/video credit JLCreations

…One of the most potent “Arc and Sound of Dance” creative opportunities is the choice of music and more, including the musicians producing the actual sound, its instrumentalization, and its interplay with the choreography. NPAFE and Lang have jointly identified several of the composer’s compositions, including his “Cheating, Lying, Stealing”, that will underlie the choreography. Given their own long and successful career experience collaborating with musicians, conductors and orchestras when matching music to concert dance, the dance principals chosen for “Arc and Sound of Dance” are especially sensitive to – and excited by – the opportunity of lending their own creative process to fully capture the presence of these Lang compositions.

David Lang

…The resulting work product will bring to global audiences what will be the first of its kind immersively recorded film-first choreographic creation anchored in Lang’s genius, coupled with an expertly (and imaginatively!) filmed chronology of people in the performing arts going for the gold. This approach is central to the project’s overall value proposition for major streaming platforms that are constantly searching for “going for the gold” storyline productions that will grow their subscriber base. 

Watch 30 seconds of Manon Servage’s “PAINT” to see how immersion can be created in 2D

…“Arc and Sound of Dance” reflects NPAFE’s mission to grow the audience for ballet and contemporary dance by opening the way for tomorrow’s stars of choreography, dance, and complex immersive digital recording of dance movement. Not nearly as well-known as they should be (but they will be!), these young artists are nevertheless the very leaders who today are using their outside-the-box creative genius to uncover and employ new hi-tech ways for marrying music and dance performance to sound and immersive digitally-recorded choreographed media.

Click the image to see and hear David Lang’s “Cheating, Lying, Stealing (on YouTube)

…The project focus and production scheduling will extend to digitally and immersively recording in documentary form the work-in-progress (WIP) as well as the final work product, making it among the very first instances of memorializing for educational purposes how the merging of two compelling art forms into immersive choreographed videography was achieved. A 2027-28 production timeline for the 8 “Arc and Sound of Dance” episodes will be preceded by digital collaboration during 2026-27 for recording test and WIP footage. This unusual technology-based approach, developed during Covid, makes it possible to link choreographic innovators to composers, musicians and dancers to jointly collaborate and rehearse even when located in different cities.

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