… In 2009, it happened that I was watching a very boring film on TV and, instead of turning it off or watching something else, I discovered that it was in my power to transform this unsatisfactory experience into a positive one. I found I could completely disconnect with the story-telling aspect of the film and view the work as a dance. I imagined that every time there was an edit in the film the character on the screen had actually leapt out of the frame and the next performers jumped in simultaneously to act the next shot…
Edges, Frames & Edits
Lea Anderson
Edges, Frames and Edits by Lea Anderson explores the openings for imagination in dull films and TV. Lea developed a method for translating feature films into dance performances through discarding the narrative and focusing on the frame of the cinematic image and the characters’ movement in and out of shot — the space created by edits.
Edges, Frames and Edits was first published as a standalone digital publication on 13 April 2018 and later included in the print publication To Step Across the Line in August 2018.
See also Lea Anderson’s 1993 commission Dirt
Lea Anderson is an independent artistic director and choreographer based in North Devon, who has been making movement-based work since 1984. Lea trained at Central St Martin’s and Trinity Laban and received an honorary doctorate from Darting College of Arts in 2006. Lea is the founder and artistic director of The Cholmondeleys & The Featherstonehaughs dance companies, based in Bristol. Lea was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2002. Lea was Regents Professor at UCLA in 2014. Lea’s recent works include: Shuffle (2022), a touring interactive dance work that sees the audience take part as voting club-goers, part performance, part game; Elvis Legs (Quarantine Mix) (2020), a distanced ensemble dance work, funded using Kickstarter and filmed on Zoom during the Covid lockdown; Los Amores de Marte y Venus (2019), a commission for Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, Havana, Cuba;
Lea has a special interest in intangible cultural heritage and living collections and has created performed exhibitions at the V&A museum (Hand in Glove, 2016), at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (Trying it On, 2018), and in an archeological site in Lima, Peru (Huaca, 2017). Lea was artist in residence at the Horniman Museum, London in 2019 and a Creative Fellow at The Bill Douglas Film Museum, Exeter 2019-2020.