Dance Film: Image Design + Camera Movement - Tori Lawrence

As possibilities of dance become amplified through cinema, how is the continuity of movement, which is natural to performing live, considered and adjusted as the body becomes eternally archived in time and space? This workshop will explore formal and conceptual elements of design in cinematography within experimental-based works. We’ll gain proficiency in the technical tools used for framing movement, measuring light, shot composition, camera movement, and shooting methods as they collaborate with the performative body.

Tori Lawrence is a New England-based choreographer, filmmaker, and educator who creates site-specific multimedia performances and digital/analog dance films. Her environmentally-based work inspires an imaginative and sustainable way of looking at, thinking about, and using space.

She is currently a guest lecturer at Bennington College, Smith College, and visiting choreographer at Drexel University. She was awarded the 2019-2020 Artist-in-Residence and Dance Lecturer position at Middlebury College, where she taught courses in Movement & Media, Improvisation, and Contemporary Technique. She has been a lecturer at the University of Kansas, and a guest artist at Franklin & Marshall College, Connecticut College, and Trinity College. She graduated from Franklin & Marshall College and received her MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship.

Her choreographic work has received funding from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), Dance Films Association, Vermont Arts Council, Pollination Project, and Lighton International Artists Exchange. She has been awarded artist residencies from Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder (Trondheim, Norway) and USF Verftet (Bergen, Norway), where she'll create a new screendance project with Jennifer Nugent in 2022-23. Other awarded artist residencies and fellowships include: Yaddo (NY; 2018), Djerassi (CA; 2017), Playa (OR; 2018), Brunakra (Sweden; 2018), Chez Bushwick (NY; 2018), Ucross Foundation (WY; 2016), Charlotte Street Foundation (MO; 2016-17), Dance Ireland (Dublin; 2014), and Workshop Foundation (Budapest; 2013).

Tori's choreography and dance films have been presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects, Dance Films Association's Dance on Camera Festival, Movement Research at the Judson Church, SCDT, Stockholm Screendance Festival, Cape Town International Film Festival, Portland Maine Film Festival, Agite y Sirva, San Francisco Tiny Dance Film Festival, Oklahoma Dance Film Festival, Legion Arts/CSPS, Lawrence Arts Center, Albrecht-Kemper Art Museum, Mulvane Art Museum, and Cyprus International Film Festival, amongst others.

She is currently collaborating with dance artist Sara Shelton Mann on a new performance installation with residencies at Space 124 (San Francisco), Counterpulse (San Francisco), and Fresh Festival (San Francisco). She is also working with dance artist Jennifer Nugent on a film installation project being presented at Triskelion (NYC) and Gibney (NYC). www.torilawrence.org