Dance companies have used video to document their work for some decades, since video equipment became affordable. It is one of the only ways to maintain records of choreography, given the great difficulty of dance notation and the scarcity of notators. Some larger companies make very high quality recordings of their productions and sell VHS tapes to the general public for a profit.

However these recordings are usually done using the camera as an observer in the audience, merely recording the proceedings of a live performance onstage. It is common knowledge that this kind of recording does not capture the true energy and thrill of the live performance.

Dance film is in fact an art form separate from both dance and cinema. It is not new; dance films have been created since the beginning of the twentieth century when the rise of cinematography coincided with the rise of contemporary dance. However it is still a marginal and relatively little-known art form that does not get much publicity or funding. With the rise of technology and its integration with many art forms, this is changing.

Some dance films produce extraordinarily beautiful images, much more appealing to the average person than the point-and-record dance filming described in the previous paragraph. Other dance films, such as the work of the Sydney-based Simon James, produce very post-modern images comparable to alternative music film-clips. (Dance as an art form could well benefit by applying some of the music industry's principles of aesthetics (for example) and marketing in order that dance film becomes a more palatable and widespread form of dance distribution to a wider audience than live dance could ever reach.)

It is still, at present, comparatively rare that dance companies per se will invest in the production of such films (although it is an area generating cumulative interest in the dance industry). What immediately springs to mind is that DV8 do produce carefully crafted films of their major works, and the National Ballet of Canada produced the exquisitely filmed and processed ballet ‘The Four Seasons’ in 1994. However these projects appear as the exception to the rule.

The high cost of equipment and editing is largely a historical perception, one that is fast becoming nullified. Digital cameras are very affordable and the cost of editing software is falling quickly in our PC-reliant society. (Editing is still the most expensive part of the process to have done with expertise.) Perhaps most significantly, film is an area that holds enough glamour or kudos to attract willing helpers quite easily for those interested in getting started.