Swimming The List

I had the chance to work with Seattle based artist Susie Lee on her latest project called Swimming The List. It was a really fun project for a few reasons. 1) I have always wanted to shoot dance and never had the chance to. 2) The concept of the dance was right up my alley. 3) The light was really cool in a few ways.

For a long time I have wanted to shoot dancers. It started when I was in college and attempting to capture ballet. There is something really powerful about the body moving so quickly and fluidly that has been stuck in my mind. I don’t think of ballet in terms of a bunch of small steps on tip-toes across a stage as a fairy. I think of long strides with legs that act as catapults to jump like a Jaguar. It has been this type of dance that has most intrigued me.

Susie Lee’s Swimming The List while isn’t filled with big movements it is very dynamic the dancer moves according to tasks that fill her daily life. What is most interesting about the piece though is the dancer’s vocal parts. As she speaks she talks about the trials and tribulations of being an artist. Struggling with who she is in relation to who she would like to be. This strikes a cord as it is something I too struggle with almost daily.

As a cinematographer the piece had some elements that were very interesting. The light used in Swimming The List isn’t light cast from a Leko or Fresnel. Rather, the key light came from two projectors that allow an artist to paint onto the X and Y axes in real time. This gives the dancer the ability to interact with the light in a way that isn’t possible with standard stage lighting.

When watching this interaction your mind makes connections to and with the light that gives it the appearance of having tangible mass. The light is ‘picked’ up, moves and plays with the dancer so that it becomes another player in story. It was really challenging to capture this light in a way that will make it translate to the screen. While easy to do when the light stays on a plane it is very difficult to truly convey the way it looks when it is moving across and through planes.

It all made for a really fun project. Stay tuned for links and clips from the final project.