Movement by Cassils at the MacKenzie Art Gallery
The video work Movement (Cassils,
2024) is within the MacKenzie Art Gallery exhibition Cassils: Movement
curated by Jacqueline Bell and Carol A. Stakenas. This exhibition, which also
includes photographs and a large scale cyanotype.
Movement is a 27 minute (4K
digital) film by Cassils currently screening within the MacKenzie Art
Gallery in Regina. The project began as a live dance performance. People I
spoke to at the opening event on September 10th recalled having seen it live,
an event which included water, intensely coloured light sources, and deep sound
vibrations which emanated through the stage, the water, and every person in the
theatre. By all accounts, the live viewing was powerful with a strong sense of
the presence of the individuals on stage, of their interactions with the floor
and the water, and of each other.
Live choreographed dance performances, due to the nature of their
requiring dancers to perform a specific set of practiced moves in a specific
place at a specific time, can only reach a limited number of spectators.
Thus, since the beginning of cinema, dance performances have been documented so
as to share them with an expanded audience. That said, not all filmed dances
are made equal. The medium of dance is the physical human body. To translate
dance to another medium is to make an endless number of changes to the original
experience. A simple camera placed in the back row will help create a memory of
the performance, but it leaves much behind. To capture the spirit of a
performance, filmmakers explore ways of translating it, introducing aspects of
the destination media into the final project to fill what has been left out.
Otherwise, filmed dance become less like their original intention, arguably weaker,
with each step it takes away from the source form.
Cassils rises to the challenge of translating this project from stage to
screen. Attention was spent on loose yet precise camerawork, where the
viewpoint could remain sharply in focus throughout the film but at the same
time the camera could fluidly slip between performers, granting the viewer
perspectives that they could not possibly have from their theatre seats.
The deep red light which bathes the stage for the majority of the film
represents the “safe light” used in a photographic darkroom. The stage contains
a giant tray of water which represents a photo-development tray where one would
immerse a print and await the image to appear. Beyond these obvious analogies,
the water and the light perform secondary duties; they confound our ability to
simplify the identities of the individual performers. Under this extreme light,
all colours except black and red are gone, leaving a mono-chromatic image which
baffles visual expectations. Not only are racial cues virtually gone, most
signifiers of gender are also suppressed. Only the simplest aspects that make
the dancers into dancers remain; the grace, the strength, the control. Editing
of the film further prevents the viewer from attaching identity to a single
body.
Furthermore, the inclusion of a large reflecting pool on the floor at the base of the screen in the actual gallery creates an expanded space for the film. From some points of view, the screen can be viewed as a gigantic Rorschach. The bodies on the screen mirrored below, expanding our view to include twins of the performers, further emphasizing the fluid nature of image as well as gender. The interconnectivity of the elements - sound, movement, light, and let’s face it, everything, is demonstrated as the mirror pool vibrates and distorts the secondary image. The perfect viewpoint, unfortunately, is three meters off the floor in the gallery - the point that would allow one to fully perceive the two images in balance - viewable only from risers in the space that don’t exist.
Of the Spartan clothing worn by the dancers, most were of a tone close to their skin. Under the red light, clothing was unnoticeable with the exception of dark knee pads each dancer wore. While these were likely rooted in practicality, the darkness of the pads made them stand out from the luminous bodies of the performers. In one shot, the dancers all stand in unison; heroic, focused, purposeful, and defiant. At that moment, the camera point of view causes their dark pads to line up against the walls of the black box theatre, severing the figures at mid-leg. Suddenly I saw them as new types of creatures, human above and dancer below; passion and movement divided but only in the eye of the camera. This was one of a handful of moments that the film brought its own cinema eye to the dancers, establishing them as free-spirited elements of their art living inside a camera obscura, momentarily escaping their role as human beings with all of the individual foibles we are each measured and judged by.
Movement is on display at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina from September 10 until January 4, 2027.
