Len Lye – “Rainbow Dance” (highlights) 1936

Len Lye’s work may look like contemporary vj wizardry, but was actually made in a time when full colour film was still a bit of a novelty. Disney had introduced Technicolor’s three-color system with “Flowers and Trees” in 1932, but most movies were still shot in black and white.

After two abstract direct-to-film shorts which were painted or stencilled directly on the film strip in 1935, Len Lye abandoned total abstraction in 1936 with “Rainbow Dance” and the stop-motion narrative short “The Birth of the Robot”. “Rainbow Dance” is a very colourful collage of treated live-action footage, artful backgrounds and direct-to-film animation effects.

1:20                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  5/11/23