Dance with Camera is an exhibition and a screening program that explores a crossover between artists and dancers who make choreography for the camera. The exhibition features art works in film, video, and still photography that exemplify the ways dance has compelled visual artists to record bodies moving in time and space. Screenings elaborate the show’s theme with iconic dance films, ranging from Busby Berkeley’s Hollywood musicals to Maya Deren’s avant-garde films. Dance with Camera, on view September 11, 2009-March 21, 2010, in ICA’s first floor gallery, spans 70 years of art and film, and features over 30 artists and filmmakers between its exhibition and screening program.

The art works in Dance with Camera show the camera lens as not merely a recording device, but also a stage and audience simultaneously. The camera creates a unique space for dance. In some instances, choreography is created for the specific space of the camera; in others it is created in editing. The camera, unlike the stage, allows close-ups that bring us near the performer. Editing is used to compress time and create structure, and even to transform relatively static performers into dancers. Still photography freezes time while also expanding the notion of dance as time-based. Dance itself is a mode to explore broader themes of narrative, structure, metaphor, and abstraction.

This exhibition travelled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (August 7-October 17, 2010) and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (January 15 – April 30, 2011).