Produced at WNET, New York City's public television station, Blue Studio is a new form of moving image art called "videodance," developed by Merce Cunningham specifically for the two–dimensional video monitor and realized in 1976 by Cunningham's filmmaker–in–residence at the time, Charles Atlas. The title of the piece comes from the technique known as "chroma key," in which any kind of background imagery imaginable can be superimposed upon the blue area of a video screen. Through this technology, as well as other video devices, Cunningham is transported into a varied series of outdoor landscapes while never actually leaving the confines of his studio. A disjunctive sound collage using the voices of John Cage and Jasper Johns completes the illusion. In its creation of an impossible yet magically fluid dance space, Blue Studio recalls Maya Deren's Study in Choreography for Camera (1945).

Publication excerpt from

In Still Moving: The Film and Media Collections of the Museum of Modern Art by Steven Higgins, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2006 , p. 269.

Medium Video (color, sound)
Duration 15:38 min.
Credit Acquired through the generosity of Barbara Pine
Object number 1275.1979
Department Media and Performance

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Charles Atlas

Charles Atlas

American, born 1949 14 works online

The work of pioneering filmmaker and video artist Charles Atlas has brought together dance, performance, and media for nearly four decades. Raised in St.

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