Review of .break .dance from the ELC Vol. 4

I read the digital work “.break .dance” by Marisa Parham. This work could not be produced in a traditional medium because it is time based and also has a lot of video points. The author built this using html and javascript. They used text, images, audio and videos to progress through the work. A lot of the videos used were from Beyoncé’s Lemonade. The reader engages with the text by clicking the arrows to move forward. The content is time-based so new words and paragraphs will show up depending on how long you stay on the page. It also uses videos in the text that the reader can decide to watch. It uses a link a couple times where you can choose either “break” or “dance”. I can distinguish the reading surface from the storage surface. This work has different links that’ll take you to different parts of the reading at different times so that each reader won’t experience the work the same way.

You can try it yourself here!