Everything is moving – From Potsdam’s Filmmuseum to Babelsberg exploring dance, art and cinema

 Which came first, dance or cinema? One would reasonably say: dance! And that’s the right answer if you think about the first forms of expression were born with the prehistoric communities and later on in Ancient Greece, during the Medieval Age, Renaissance until today. Moving bodies had very different meanings: on one hand it could’ve been a manifestation of power, while on the other side it might have been used as a religious ritual or a profane one. What happened then? 
 
Cinema came up and helped dance become a demonstration of freedom, people started to go dancing not only to flirt or have a drink with friends as John Travolta did in “Saturday Night Fever”, but also to have a pause, relax and forget all the rest, as Jennifer Beals taught us in “Flash Dance”. Discos, pubs and clubs are now the main places where to freely ruin your hair out on the dance floor. No matter if in company or alone. Roses, skipping, and jumping. Dancing as an art of bodies and space unites visual attraction, discipline and beauty.
saturday-night-fever-1024x684


It was quite simultaneously with the appearance of movies that many dance movements in Europe and US evolved to have at least the same relevance of classical ballet and overcome it. 
Already at an early stage flicks gave dancing rhythms and dynamics new means: movements were deconstructed and re-assembled through editing, body details were assigned an important place and single sequences were underlined in slow-motion. Cameras started to dance too, trying to abandon themselves into the rhythm of greatly choreographed ballets, balls, shows and open air dances. To present the difference of traditional and modern dance styles is an ongoing challenge for cinema and its pictures in motion.

That’s what has been presented in the exhibition “Everything is moving – Dance and Cinema” in Potsdam’s Filmmuseum (Breite Str. 1A). The show organizes an ensemble of repertoire videos, photos and costumes in five rooms. It visits various dancing sites, shows dancers and tells us dancing stories, and locates the art of dance within film genres in which choreographies enchantand transform the world. Screenings, workshops and parties accompany the exhibition. 

Leave a Reply