Twin Shadow Dance

An artist called Edwin Li approached me about performing for a public festival in Newcastle. The full performance was about twenty-five minutes and here you see a condensed version. I and my partner Cat Foley danced in a very small space on concrete blocks in front of one half of a translucent screen that was divided into two down the centre. A light on us threw our shadow onto our half of the screen, and a camera on the other side of this recorded it and passed the image to a projector, which projected a reversed version of the shadow on the other half of the screen.

Unfortunately, a few things went wrong. The local public took delight in walking in front of the cameras and the lights, so the full performance is marred by numerous passers-by blocking out the images. Also, the recording of the information sent to the projector got mangled somehow. This video you see here I put together using editing software. I took usable bits of footage from one screen, and then flipped them round and put them on the other side. One advantage of this is that I was able to remove the central vertical divider, which means that the shadows can touch each other in the middle, and make interesting Rorschach patterns. The footage I had to work with was a shot taken from the same side that we were dancing on, though, so whenever we strayed across the central boundary, you can here see glimpses of our real selves.

I am dancing to some of my favourite swing music, which I chose for the occasion. Gene Harris (Captain Bill), Junior Mance (Blue Mance), Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra (C Jam Blues), Tommy Dorsey (Swinging on Nothing), Count Basie (Jeep Jockey Jump), and Casey MacGill and the Spirits of Rhythm (Rhythm).

I'm not entirely sure of the temperature, but I think it was about minus six centigrade.

www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• dance
• shadow
• lloyd
• swing
• lindy
• hop
• screen
• rorschach
• ink
• blot
• symmetry
• breath
• junior
• mance
• blue
• basie
• dorsey
• rhythm
• jam

[monkeygirl32598]

okay if u pay eal close attention notice the EXACT flairs of the girls dress on both and the intersection would be impossiblebecause the collide together instead of overlaping easily could b some1 dancing behind a white sheet and just mirrored it odvious to c just 2 say like if u agree

[lindybeige]

@monkeygirl32598 I confess that I have not followed this argument, but I'll agree anyway.

[killersushi99]

I hope nobody paid to see this. Free performance right? It looses its novelty in the first 15 seconds.

[lindybeige]

Harsh, but true, it was free. The idea was as well as having a live event, to project the images on the wall at another event at the same time.

[MaceyOxx]

OBVZ its a mirror :) cant you see the lady keeps going into herself lmao!

[P01029]

is this reflection off of a mirror or sumthin? or actual two diff couples? cuz that'd b realli realli tough lol

[lbrez44]

See, if people took the time to read the info before they criticized, then maybe they would not be so ignorant to the whole idea.

This is very entertaining! I really enjoy swing-it's always fun watching people dance to it....great editing work- love the patterns that developed as a result.

You're a great dancer as well!!

Take care.

[dragonslayer1003]

yes! how dare u use a reflection that looks kinda cool? if u dont do it with identicle twins and do the imposable job of matching them to the very milasecond you will be beated with a sack full of oranges then be crushed to death. they make imaginary laws for a reason! lol dont put to much thought to prople being stupid i thougt it was kinda funny

[lindybeige]

Ha ha! Well people can write what they like up to a point, and I suppose I usually prefer praise to abuse. Gubpipe's comment (above) seems to imply that I have cheated, and have not done the proper thing: to get two identical couples to dance in perfect mirror images of each other.

[kiiloe123]

what did u want ppl to be like

"this is a piece of sh!t! who would watch this? it dumb and stupid"