Filming the
House of Dance

Kate Foley is the producer of "house of dance", a public access cable show (TCI's Citivisions Channel 53, 10:30pm Thursdays) which airs documentation tapes of stage performances edited for broadcast, and dances commissioned, choreographed and directed for broadcast.

What was the impetus for house of dance? I mean, as a dancer and choreographer, what made you decide to produce dance on Cable television? A friend of mine came up with the contract, put my name on it and dropped out. Really, that's what happened. But I suppose the underlying motive for continuing the project was to figure out a way to reach a wider audience with dance.

How did you begin? Did you know anything about it? I knew nothing. I and some friends signed up for production classes and found out how it all worked. The classes were very accessible; they are offered through Citivisions (Public Access Channel 53) and I highly recommend them.

What were the pitfalls in the beginning? What were the joys? The pitfalls were all about assimilating so much technical information in such a short time. The joys were all found in working and collaborating with a group of artists.

Did you find people to be helpful and supportive? How? Everyone has been very supportive. People at the station are positive and great teachers; funders like the project because it increases audience for dance; choreographers like it because they get a low cost introduction to the production process; choreographers who do works commissioned for the camera get to experience the whole production process, including the post production process; it's really an in-depth experience in making a work for the camera which gets broadcast and screened publicly. I think the active participation of all these people shows a lot of support for the project.

I know you worked with filmmaker David Michalak as the choregorapher for and a dancer in his film INSIDE OUT; was that before, during or after producing house of dance? Before.

How did that experience help you? Working in film and public access are completely different mediums. Because film is so much more expensive, it is far more elaborately planned, although I like to think that when working with the choreographers for house of dance, I used elements of David's process with film as best I could.

How long did you work on David's film INSIDE OUT? Let's see, it was conceived in summer '93, and screened in summer '96. We rehearsed fall of '93, shot spring of '94, edited through the summer of '94, and the score took almost two years to complete. I'd say a little over the year of real involvement.

Were you involved in building the score? I was involved early on, in the structure of the score and in establishing the way different dance sequences were rhythmically built.

What was your biggest challenge choreographing for film or video? You know, as a choreographer I would often just choreograph until I had a bunch of pieces that fit together and they told me what they were about, and then I built on that. With film, you have to think in terms of the whole and then take it apart to construct it. It is so production intensive, and there are so many people involved in building the piece that it has to be totally conceived and understood by everyone, and then it has to be taken apart and made, then put back together again. Figuring it out slowly, bit by bit, like I do often with dances, doesn't work.

What was it like working with choreographers as a producer, to get their work ready to be shown on house of dance? Fun. Really. It is a great opportunity to connect with other people about what excites them about their work, and what they are trying to do. You know, when we are involved in creating our work and we're on our own we don't get to have those conversations.

How many people do you think watch house of dance? Do you have any measurement of audience; who are they? About 5-10,000 people per show, according to Citivisions. They are cable-viewers in general...people who can afford cable.

What percentage of work on house of dance has been dance commissioned specifically for television? Only five shows over the last two years have been commissioned works; that's five out of 52 shows.

How does commissioned work differ from edited documentary tapes? The commissioned works are pieces that I developed with the choreographers; I co-directed with the choreographers, who wrote, choreographed and created them. I help them wade through the technical problems of getting their ideas to work in a scene.

Who edits the videos? Do you? Do you have a team of people working with you? I edit the videos. Up until now I've done it all myself. I've had a crew that I've worked with regularly in making the commissioned works happen and I'm about to bring on two new producers. We also show work that was done by other artists, that we just air. Sometimes we're just a venue, and that's great too.

How do you pay choreographers for commissioned work? Through a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Organizational Support Program.

How much time, if any, do you spend fundraising for house of dance. I don't know...I hired a grantwriter in the last year. It varies depending on how many grants we put out...Too much time.

Are there any great moments that stick out in your mind? Our favorite thing is coming up with cheesy special effects at the Citivision studio, trying to make things look good for little or no cost. That's how we entertain ourselves; you might call it our forté.

What do you most want people to get from watching house of dance? I want them to get excited enough about dance to come and see it in the theater...to realize it exists.

For those of us who don't know; how do you get TCI's Civisions Cable 53? Well, you live in San Francisco and you call up TCI and say "hook me up!" For people who aren't cable subscribers in San Francisco, the tapes will be archived at the Performing Arts Library and Museum in San Francisco sometime later this year and you can go see them.

Any new TV or film projects in the works? I just completed the choreography and co-editing of a piece by New York filmmaker Rea Tajiri called "Little Murders." It's a surreal narrative with two dance set pieces; it's an experimental short. It was shown at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco on March 9th at 9:00pm as part of the Asian American Film and Video Festival.

Now that you've worked in several medias, how do you feel about live dance performance and dance in general? I'm completely dedicated to it. Dance needs to exist on film/video because a lot of people will see it first on their television sets before they encounter it live in a concert. TV and film validate dance, and then people are drawn to see it live. There really is no substitute for live performance though. One can't replace the other.

What do you think you'll be doing five years from now? I'm going to be doing what I'm doing now; producing, directing, choreographing, of course.