Ballet, skateboarding, and no Gesmer?
Graham Taylor has made a video comparing skateboarders to modern ballet dancers. It includes some UK footage from the 90’s on. Noticeably present, the Craig Stecyk quote about technology, a cement playground and the minds of 11 year olds. Noticeably absent is the Daniel Gesmer spotlight. In any case, It’s an odd little film that might make you chuckle, especially when the jump cuts between the two disciplines get hopping. Try to imagine a session at street spot with everyone in tights. Then try to imagine ballet dancers gathering secretively in an empty warehouse with their generators and mirrors, practicing their moves and then cursing loudly while trying to focus that big wooden bar.
[Source: When we was RAD]
rough paralleling of skateboarding and modern ballet dancing, both disciplines evolved in different parts of the 20th century dealing with interpretation of space and environement and both effected profoundly by the involvement of film cameras. seen here are the choreography of george balanchine, the films of norman mclaren and various skate films from late 90’s and early 2000’s
Really well done. Some great skate sequences. I liked the wall ride to flip out and that ramp to ramp ollie. I’m guessing that’s all culled from skate videos?
He should have had someone read the Stecyk quotations, so it matched the guys talking at the beginning and I would have left out the stroboscopic sequences. Novelty footage is the bane of filmmaking. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Peralta uses that cool 3D still thing in his latest film and it works but he also uses a morph from a little kid school portrait to his adult gangster appearance and it’s just distracting.
“Try to imagine a session at street spot with everyone in tights.”
It looks pretty close to this with the girl jeans everyone wears now!
This video set my gaydar off