Dancing Phantoms

A detail of the original film poster for “Le Charme des fleurs” (Gaston Velle, 1910)

“Dancing Phantoms: The Cinematic Representation of the Subconscious through Choreographic Embodiments”, Immagine. Note di Storia del Cinema, IV series, No. 18, July-December 2018, special issue edited by Mireille Berton and Silvio Alovisio, pp. 117-143.

“During the so called “cinéma de la seconde époque” (1907-1917), oneiric and hallucinatory visions were considered by both psychology and physiology as the collateral effects of modern life. Danced visions of dreams and hallucinatory states appeared as films increasingly mirrored contemporary life. Symptomatically, the cinematic depiction of these extraordinary mental states of the modern subject was often dramatised on screen through dance.”

Elisa Uffreduzzi