Erica Russell

I found two of Erica Russell's animations today, the first Triangle (below) was her first animation. The title relates to the themes of love and jealousy in the film, which is shown through expressive dance.




Immediately the sense of form that Russell achieves in the figures struck me and how by using simple shapes alone she is able to suggest figures and concentrate on the dialogue of their movements, not the intricate details. I like the looseness of the film as well - it seems like she uses stretches the arms of the figures in particular to emphasise the energy in them. My problem with it though is that she creates a narrative between these 3 figures, but it's never resolved, there's no satisfactory ending for them and their battle. I found it interesting though that it's hard to distinguish the female figures as the animation progresses, so that you almost can't root for one figure over another and root for a particular ending, but again this was a bit frustrating as it was harder to connect to the figures because of this.

 

Next I watched Feet of Song, which is similar to Triangle in it's use of basic figures and expressive dance, but it doesn't have the same strong narrative, which I missed. Feet of Song is all about the dancing and while I liked seeing Russell's technical skill for creating figures and form out of basic shapes and distortions, it couldn't hold my attention. Without a narrative it seemed like just a showcase of her talent and love for dance and although I can admire this, I couldn't connect to it.