Dancing On My Own By Claire Perkins Analysis

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In her article “Dancing on my own: Girls and television of the body”, Claire Perkins discusses how the body is used in place of dialogue to develop the story and the characters (34) The next few shots are jump cuts between Marnie and various main characters. First we see Jessa who has wild and free dance movements that show her carefree nature. Her face is always positioned away from the camera, which indicates that she is secretly insecure about who she is – something she does not have the courage to admit out loud. Then we are introduced to Adam and Hannah. Their in sync dancing immediately highlights the bond the characters share. The positioning of their bodies, Hannah having her back to Adam and him performing the riding motion, further develops this bond in a negative way. The dancing suggests that Adam …show more content…
The well-lit crowd that ignores the central action symbolises that even in the darkest of times, hence the dark lighting that engulfs Jessa and the man, you can only rely on yourself. The camera jump cuts again to Adam and Hannah accept this time the camera lingers on the exterior setting before the characters even enter the frame. This technique is used to highlight how life exists outside of the characters in the world of ‘Girls’. Even though our focus is forced to be on Hannah and Adam at this point does not mean that they are worth our time – we have the right to decide for ourselves. Cutting back to Marnie and Elijah, the railing in the background foreshadows their lack of understanding with each other. The long shot and the dark lighting highlight the distance in their relationship. The moment the truth is being exposed to Marnie we get a close up shot of her with the light illuminating half of her face – she cant hide who is truly is anymore. We also see the shot-reverse-shot used to put the characters on a level playing field with each

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