Jenny Oyallon-Koloski

Jenny's Bio

Jenny Oyallon-Koloski studies the manifestations of figure movement in cinematic space and the ways that filmmakers incorporate dance and movement into their storytelling practices. She holds a PhD in communication arts (specializing in film) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is certified in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies (LIMS), and completed her BA in English at Carleton College, where she performed with the Semaphore Repertory Dance Company from 2006 to 2008. Her research on dance in film, the musical genre, and the films of Jacques Demy is published in Studies in French Cinema, Post Script, [in]Transition: The Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, Screenworks, and Digital Humanities Quarterly. Her first book project, Meaning in Motion: Choreography and Storytelling in the Film Musical, explores the historical contexts and storytelling power of figure movement and dance in French and American film musicals with a focus on West Side Story (1961), Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), Trois places pour le 26 (1988), Jeanne et le garçon formidable (1998), and La La Land (2016). She also codirects the Movement Visualization Lab, serves as the movement analysis specialist for the Media Ecology Project, and is a faculty affiliate of the College of Media’s Eye Tracking/Physiology Lab. Her teaching interests include dance in film, digital media production, videographic criticism, genre studies, performative research, French cinema, movement in media, film stylistics, contemporary cinema, and industry studies.