Final Project Statement
My final project is titled "Dance Mosaic." It is an audio/video montage,
in which I appropriated various dance clips from movies, as well as an audio clip that I merged
with various sounds and textures. In addition to montage and appropriation, this piece also
incorporates questions of authorship. There are many dance remixes, and many of them use some
of the same video clips I have incorporated. This project isn’t an original idea, but true to
remix, borrows existing material in the creation of an original piece.
While I was working on this, I started thinking of Nam June Paik’s work, and thought it would
be fun to create a sort of dance mosaic; kind of a dance within a dance. I incorporated
several effects, including zoom in, zoom out, mirror, reverse and lighting. I’m pleased with
how the dance clips fit with the music. I tried to make linkages from one clip to the next
(e.g., the penguin tap dance leading to Fred Astaire tap dancing). I think some of the
transitions work better than others, and if I had more time I’d tighten that up. Overall,
I’m pleased with how it turned out, and feel I captured the mosaic effect I was working toward.
Kathleen M. Schultheis
April 27, 2011