Magic dance

I do like this.
It’s hard though without and actual choreographer stepping in. As we’d want something that felt culturally unique and perhaps a blend of styles and existing forms to create something new. Otherwise we end up othering a certain existing dance style and exoticise it while also culturally appropriating it for a white woman to dance. But I don’t have the language to even describe how we’d go about blending the elements we like.

I think though, the use of slow motion in lots of these clips, including the above, lends to an ethereal quality. Thinking about the cinematography I find helpful. Do we have any choreographers or dancers? That’d be super cool!

Bollywood dance is already a mix of styles as it is a Westenized movie dance version using elements of various traditional Indian dances - without following their strict rules and clearly catering to modern tastes and itself lending heavily from various Western and other - e.g. Arabic - dance forms, modern, traditional and classical.
The group above is made of Indian-heritage Canadian dancers (Shadow Entertainment is the largest South Asian dance company in Canada. Combining the strengths of top dancers around the GTA, Shadow seeks to dedicate its time and effort towards showcasing upbeat, entertaining and power-packed performances. Our goal is to incorporate several dance styles including: Bollywood, Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Hip Hop, Dappan Koothu (Ghana), Dancehall, Folk Dance (Garba, Dandia) and Contemporary in a well-mixed fusion between Western and South Asian culture. - from their own information page on YouTube).
Lending some technical dance elements or attitudes from it seems fine to me - of course not the song, specific folk instruments, actual mudra hand gestures with their specific meanings or the costumes.
 
Last edited:
What I have also found it a lot of dancing using veils in a fashion not unlike to cloaks - using Luthien's cloak as a dance assessory might help a lot with the sleep dance imho:


 
If the cloak does have transformative properties, having it shift or change the mood/lighting of the dance, itself having an effect of some kind, could be really cool. Every major arc it performs being akin to an element of a spell, if that metaphor works.
 
I do like this.
It’s hard though without and actual choreographer stepping in. As we’d want something that felt culturally unique and perhaps a blend of styles and existing forms to create something new. Otherwise we end up othering a certain existing dance style and exoticise it while also culturally appropriating it for a white woman to dance. But I don’t have the language to even describe how we’d go about blending the elements we like.

I think though, the use of slow motion in lots of these clips, including the above, lends to an ethereal quality. Thinking about the cinematography I find helpful. Do we have any choreographers or dancers? That’d be super cool!
This actually makes me think of a deleted scene from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald where Leta and Theseus attend a social event, where there is a rumor that Leta's long-lost brother Corvus, believed to be Credence, has been found alive. There is a dancer there, whose movements cause a number of silk-like projections to fly through the air... and trigger a flashback to when Corvus was supposedly lost at sea as an infant (he turned out to actually be lost) due to Leta's actions when she switched two infant boys; the one Leta took with her to America became Credence.

 
This is exactly what I’m thinking of. Knew I’d seen a sequence in something but couldn’t remember where to reference!

I don’t love the fabric render as it’s clearly more designed to resemble a liquid while still being silken but sits in that uncanny valley for me personally.

What I do love is the use of light to convey the fantastical, particularly in those final shots
 
This actually makes me think of a deleted scene from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald where Leta and Theseus attend a social event, where there is a rumor that Leta's long-lost brother Corvus, believed to be Credence, has been found alive. There is a dancer there, whose movements cause a number of silk-like projections to fly through the air... and trigger a flashback to when Corvus was supposedly lost at sea as an infant (he turned out to actually be lost) due to Leta's actions when she switched two infant boys; the one Leta took with her to America became Credence.


Is the glittering of dancer's dress not fiber optics or CGI enhanced here? - The main figure also has a dress with glittering stones sewn on which do no glitter much in the half-shadow of the scene, also no light is reflected on the matt silks of the other guests robes? The glittering at the dancer's hem, but also above on the bodice looks independant from any outer lightsource - it does not seem reflective?
 
Last edited:
Is the glittering of dancer's dress not fiber optics or CGI enhanced here? - The main figure also has a dress with glittering stones sewn on which do no glitter much in the half-shadow of the scene, also no light is reflected on the matt silks of the other guests robes? The glittering at the dancers hem, but also above on the bodice looks independant from any outer lightsource - it does not seem reflective?
The shot is unfinished; this is a deleted scene (though it looks to have been cut relatively late in post-production since it was featured in promotional material like trailers and had a score).
 
Last edited:
The use of fabric to represent water on stage is a well-established technique. The lighting plays a role, of course, but no CGI necessary to pull off such an effect! It can be seen in some of the Swan Lake clips I linked above, and was also used in the Flight to the Ford scene in the Lord of the Rings musical (Toronto and London, IIRC). I understand that in the Harry Potter clip, the dancer is meant to be using magic to keep the scarves in the air, and so of course CGI was needed for that effect.

One key difference between the actress in Mirror Mirror and the Canadian dance troop is in the costumes - Lilly Collins is wearing a stiffly corseted bodice that confines her motion, and voluminous skirts that need to be picked up to avoid tripping on them. Not exactly an ideal dance costume. Contrast this with the outfits the Shadow Entertainment dancers are wearing - bare midriffs, skirts well above the floor, and veils attached at the shoulders to keep them in place. That allows for a much more interesting set of dance moves.

There are plenty of traditional dances that are vigorous and energetic. I think we could borrow from a variety of traditions to choreograph Lúthien's dance.

Here's a few Ethiopian dances. Very strong on the shoulder motion!

 
I do like this.
It’s hard though without and actual choreographer stepping in. As we’d want something that felt culturally unique and perhaps a blend of styles and existing forms to create something new. Otherwise we end up othering a certain existing dance style and exoticise it while also culturally appropriating it for a white woman to dance. But I don’t have the language to even describe how we’d go about blending the elements we like.

I think though, the use of slow motion in lots of these clips, including the above, lends to an ethereal quality. Thinking about the cinematography I find helpful. Do we have any choreographers or dancers? That’d be super cool!
See thread "Dance Choreography" under Across the Series>General Discussion.
 
Back
Top