Skip to main content
Back to search
  • Add to playlist

Danses Macabres - collective screendance project

Danses Macabres Collective Screendance:

The Festival International de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne proposed its first collective screendance project in 2013 in honor of the centenary of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). Known as an omnibus film, this project asked artists to unite under one common theme within the space of the same film. To our knowledge, this was the first ever omnibus work of screendance and is the subject of an article in The International Journal of Screendance. For an ombnibus screendance, each artist receives a few minutes of music with which to create a screendance segment. The various segments are then edited together by Franck Boulègue & Marisa C. Hayes to create one long collective work. In 2016, the festival asked artists to work with the theme of Les Danses Macabres, described below. Artists were free to use any style of dance and filmmaking to explore the theme, the only regulations were the music and to work in black and white for this project. The segments created are diverse and engage many methods of screendance creation: found footage, site-specific dance, motion capture dance animation, and more. According to film scholar David Scott Diffrient, omnibus films are like a buffet that invite us to “taste the world”. For the Danses Macabres project, artists with which the festival had previously worked were commissioned to contribute and represent five different continents.

Les Danses Macabres are a cultural phenomenon that first appeared as a medieval allegory in the 15th century via paintings and engravings, and have marked the development of numerous art forms ever since. Intended as a universal reminder that death is an inescapable fact (uniting us all regardless of wealth or rank), images of Danses Macabres usually depict moving skeletons, but have paved the way for other styles such as vanitas and other mortal reminders in art. Although the Danses Macabres are a European development, all cultures feature artistic practices and events, both past and present that address our shared mortality. From Mexico’s Dia de los muertos (day of the dead) celebrations to Japan’s post-war Butoh, the concept of death seems to haunt the human race at every turn. Whether mocked joyfully in Disney’s Skeleton Dance (1928) or staged solemnly (Roland Petit’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort [The Young Man and Death], 1946), artists across diverse media and eras have attempted to articulate their relationship to loss and dying. While death is usually associated with being inanimate, its representation in art is often quite the opposite: dancing bodies in motion, living life to the fullest. Film scholar André Habib ponders: ‘Does not every image of death, precisely because it is an image, seek to deny death by inscribing it within an imperishable time, away from the corruption of living organisms?

The films featured in this collective project both draw on and depart from traditional depictions of Danses Macabres. They approach death from a variety of angles, including: explorations of time, transitions and ontology, among others.

Danses Macabres 2

The 20 films featured in this collective screendance project both draw on and depart from traditional depictions of Danses Macabres. They approach death from a variety of angles, including: explorations of time, transitions and ontology, among others.

Festival International de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne 2016 - Danses macabres

Video conception : Centre de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne

Our videos suggestions
02:55

Relâche

  • Add to playlist
03:46

La Valse de Vaslav

Tompkins, Mark (France)

  • Add to playlist
04:07

Icons

Tompkins, Mark (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:01

Hard to Be Soft

Doherty, Oona (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:01

Peekaboo

Goecke, Marco (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:07

Skin

Tchouda, Bouba Landrille (France)

  • Add to playlist
01:57

Walk

  • Add to playlist
06:24

Colin Dunne & eRikm Project

Dunne, Colin (France)

  • Add to playlist
05:05

Locus Focus

Tanaka, Min (France)

  • Add to playlist
48:04

Peuplé, dépeuplé

Ben Aïm, Christian & François (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:13

Peuplé, dépeuplé

Ben Aïm, Christian & François (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:17

Ferry

Keller, Jennifer (United States)

  • Add to playlist
02:40

Cartes postales de Chimère

Bédard, Louise (Canada)

  • Add to playlist
08:04

Yellow Towel

Michel, Dana (France)

  • Add to playlist
07:07

Its not a thing

Gaskin, Keyon (France)

  • Add to playlist
06:30

Sorrow Swag

Lewis, Ligia (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:41

Heimat - focus

Brabant, Jérôme (Reunion)

  • Add to playlist
06:25

Body Without A Brain

Rianto (Indonesia)

  • Add to playlist
44:45

Blas Payri - Tres visiones de Santa Teresa de Avila

  • Add to playlist
03:28

Kaz Bourbon - focus

Bulin, Nadjani (Reunion)

  • Add to playlist
Our themas suggestions

DANCE AND DIGITAL ARTS

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

K. Danse's artistic partners

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Dyptik Company

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Roots of Diversity in Contemporary Dance

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

CHRISTIAN & FRANÇOIS BEN AÏM – VITAL MOMENTUM

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

LATITUDES CONTEMPORAINES

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

40 years of dance and music

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Indian dances

Discover Indian dance through choreographic creations which unveil it, evoke it, revisit it or transform it!

Parcours

fr/en/

Body and conflicts

A look on the bonds which appear to emerge between the dancing body and the world considered as a living organism.

Parcours

fr/en/

James Carlès

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Meeting with literature

Collaboration between a choreographer and a writer can lead to the emergence of a large number of combinations. If sometimes the choreographer creates his dance around the work of an author, the writer can also choose dance as the subject of his text.

Parcours

fr/en/

When reality breaks in

How does choreographic works are testimonies of the world? Does the contemporary artist is the product of an era, of its environment, of a culture?

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance and performance

 Here is a sample of extracts illustrating burlesque figures in Performances.

Parcours

fr/en/

Butoh

On 24th May 1959, Tatsumi Hijikata portrayed the character of the "Man" in the first presentation of a play called Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours).
The Ankoku Butoh was born,

Parcours

fr/en/

Do you mean Folklores?

Presentation of how choreographers are revisiting Folklore in contemporary creations.

Parcours

fr/en/

States of the body

Explanation of the term « State of the body » when it’s about dance.

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance in Quebec: Untamed Bodies

First part of the Parcours about dance in Quebec, these extracts present how bodies are being used in a very physical way.

Parcours

fr/en/

Maison de la danse

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Improvisation

 Discovery of improvisation’s specificities in dance. 

Parcours

fr/en/
By accessing the website, you acknowledge and accept the use of cookies to assist you in your browsing.
You can block these cookies by modifying the security parameters of your browser or by clicking onthis link.
I accept Learn more