Imaginary Crossing (1980)

In the early days of video art, the New Television Workshop at WGBH-TV asked me to collaborate with videographer Robin Doty to create a "dance video" without a director. Having been disappointed by the lack of vitality in stage choreography as documented by video, we wanted to make a piece specifically FOR video time and space...a piece that only exists on video.

By keeping the camera very tight most of the time, using the dancer's breathing and percussive body sounds, and enhancing some body movements with camera movement, we created a piece that feels very physical and allows the audience an intimacy with the performer that could never be achieved in a theater space.

Reviews

"Body movements and camera movements are marvelously harmonious...the dancer appears to work within the dimension of a video-space (and not a theatrical space)...
Through a combination of pacing, eye contacts, close-up camera work, compelling rhythms, mystery and power, the work inexorably draws the viewer under its own mantle. Sensual appeal, symbolic suggestion and metaphor are employed in ways to suggest many layers of meaning, and, most importantly, convey the feeling of a probing intellect, a joint exploration, a meld of perception and body movement...It is this sense of thoughtful inquiry into both the form and content of television that is most provocative and challenging -- Kramer-Doty's joint effort to find a "perfect" and true visual syntax for the natural properties of the television medium

--David H. Katzive
(former) Director, DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park
January 25, 1982

Dawn Kramer	Echo Bridge, assorted cast