What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Videodance?

Videodance is a hybrid practice (Kappenberg, 2015) coming from the dialogue between dance and moving images. Through the years, this performative art has been named in many different ways such as videodance, ciné-dance, dancefilm, screendance, and dance for camera. This pointed out the urgency to answer the questions: what we are talking about when we talk about videodance? What kind of approach can we use in order to support interdisciplinary theoretical research on videodance practices? By presenting the first results of a research carried out within the archive of Il Coreografo Elettronico International Videodance Festival (1990–2017), kept at Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (Museo Madre) of Naples and curated by a team of scholars from Sapienza Università di Roma, the essay draws attention to what choreography is or might be in a videodance performance, and why it is important to analyse the plural authoriality on which this artistic practice is based. Three cases of plural authoriality are here proposed. First, the work by the choreographers Angelin Preljocaj and Daniel Belton. Second, the negotiation between cinema and choreography in the videodance performances by the choreographer Philippe Decouflé and the director Vincent Hachet; and by the choreographer Ariella Vidach and the videomaker Claudio Prati. Third, the compositional method by the Belgian director and composer Thierry De Mey, who won the competition of Il Coreografo Elettronico Festival in 2005 with the videodance pièce "Ma Mère l’Oye".