Dance Films Association's
Dance on Camera Festival 2010
co-sponsored by The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Mark Morris Dance Center, The Beacon School, Movement Research
See list of artists who appeared

Dance Reflection

LE MOLLET DE LA DANSEUSE/ Feet on the Ground
Marie-Pascale Lescot, France, 2009; 52M
For 10 years in the 1980s, the director danced professionally. She quit dancing until her son took his first steps. Then, questions arose: Where does dance come from? What makes us dance? Spiderman, Fred Astaire, Swatch watches and stubborn calves provide some clues. See clip

Documentaries

BREATH MADE VISIBLE
Ruedi Gerber, USA, 2009; 80M
A stunning, inspiring account of one of the most important cultural icons in modern dance. Anna Halprin, the American dance pioneer who has helped redefine our notion of modern art with her belief in dance's power to teach, heal, and transform at all ages of life. This cinematic portrait blends recent interviews with archival footage. See trailer Theatrical run begins April 2, 2010 at the Roxie in San Francisco and Elmwood in Berkeley, CA

DANCING ACROSS BORDERS
Anne Bass, USA, 2008; 90M
Sokvannara Sar  (Sy) was a young, gifted dancer living with his family in Cambodia when he was discovered by Anne Bass, an American enthusiast and supporter of ballet. The two of them set out on a risky journey from Angor Wat to New York City, where Sy dedicated himself to learning an alien art under the tutelage of the master teacher, Olga Kostritzky at the School of American Ballet. See trailer Theatrical run begins March 26, 2010 through First Run Features

FORTY YEARS OF ONE  NIGHT STANDS
Jeff McKay, Canada, 2008; 72M
Born out of nothing in the middle of nowhere, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) set the ballet world on prairie fire. From Flin Flon to Moscow, it wowed audiences and critics alike with its youth, vitality and innocent excitement. Through the diverse voices of RWB company members—past and present—40 YEARS OF ONE NIGHT STANDS recounts the saga of the obsessive commitment and vision of those who brought the lofty art of ballet to the people. See trailer

KEEP DANCING
Douglas Turnbaugh and Gregory Vander Veer, USA; 18M
Friends since the Broadway run of THE FOLLIES in 2001, Marge Champion and Donald Saddler still dance together in a studio twice a week. See trailer.

MEREDITH MONK: INNER VOICE
Babeth M. VanLoo, USA; 82M
A Buddhist Foundation documentary on the much admired composer, choreographer, filmmaker Meredith Monk with excerpts from her films. Distributed by First Run Features. DVD release May 18, 2010

NEW YORK DANCE: States of Performance
Michael Blackwood, USA, 2009, 97M
NEW YORK DANCE: States of Performance is the latest in Michael Blackwood's trilogy on the state of contemporary dance. His first exploration was in 1980, MAKING DANCES, curated by dance scholar Marcia B. Siegel, focused on the first generation of postmodernists--Douglas Dunn, Lucinda Childs, Meredeith Monk, David Gordon and Sara Rudner, documenting their work and ideas. The second film, made in 1988, featured Stephen Petronio, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones (with Arnie Zane), and Wendy Perron, among the first generation of postmodern choreographers, and was curated by dance writer Sally Banes. In 2010, Blackwood explores new currents for the new decade with NEW YORK DANCE, curated by dance critic Gia Kourlas. The film features Christopher Wheeldon, Jennifer Monson, Sara Michelson, John Jasperse, Ralph Lemon, Beth Gill and Ann Liv Young, who express their ideas and dance aesthetic in rehearsal and performance.

NRITYAGRAM: FOR THE LOVE OF DANCE
Nan Melville, USA, 2009, 26M
This painterly portrait of an idyllic dance village near Bangalore offers a taste of the Indian dance style, Odissi. Protima Bedi institutionalized classical Indian dance through the founding of Nrityagram; a “gurukul" where students could dance and live in close proximity with their master guru. The internationally renowned Nrityagram Dance Ensemble continues to expand on Protima’s legacy; lead dancer and choreographer, Surupa Sen and Odissi Gurukul Director, Bijayini Satpathy have expanded the language of the traditional Odissi dance through the incorporation of choreographic techniques adapted from world dance. The Ensemble continues to push the boundaries of Indian dance and to perform to worldwide acclaim. See clip Distributed by Nan Melville

ONE STEP AT A TIME
Clifton Raphael, USA, 2008, 60M
The Jenks High School Film and TV Department created with the support of Jenks Public Schools a documentary portrait of their regional ballet company, Tulsa Ballet. By following a season of Tulsa Ballet, "One Step at a Time" explores the process of artistic creation--through personal profiles of and interviews with dancers and choreographers.

URBAN BALLET
Brigitte Kramer & Jorg Jeshel, 2008, Germany, 52M
A site-specific, witty tour of contemporary dance today including 10 dance companies, all shot in Berlin: Dresden Semper Oper Ballett, Dave St. Pierre, Membros Cia de Danca, Akram Khan Company, Tecktonick, Hiroaki Umeda, Boris Charmatz, Meg Stuart & Jeremy Wade, Nasser Martin-Gousset, Les Slovaks Dance Collective, Olivier Dubois, Jefta van Dinter & Mette Ingvartsen

WHERE THE DANCE IS
Marta Renzi, USA, 2009, 16'
In May of 2009, choreographer Doug Elkins worked with 8 students from Beacon High School in New York City. This documentary follows the process of their rehearsals, as the kids gain confidence, build a community - and are entertained by the humor and hyperactive wit of their teacher.

Dance for the Camera Shorts

BECOMING
Joseph Johnson Camí & Ayelen Liberona, Canada, 2009; 8M
An ancient woman moves like a praying mantis as she blends gracefully through changing landscapes. She leaps through a cornfield to lure Man into one final battle. See trailer

BEGUINE - Nominated for Jury Prize for Best Short
Douwe Dijkstra, Netherlands, 2009, 4:44
One man's response to losing his lover, a surreal short based on a poem by Giza Ritschl.

CHAMAME
Silvina Szperling, Argentina, 2008; 9M
A delirious, chameleon woman gets carried away by the Paraná River stream. She becomes one with the plants or the fish; is at times a heroin and at times a victim, until she is rescued by a fisherman.

CHLOES
Lea Fulton and Greg King, USA, 2009; 5M
Two women negotiate the confines of a sleek, modern bus stop shelter on a gritty urban street at night.

CINÉTICA - Jury Winner Prize for Best Short
Ana Cembrero Coca, Spain, 2008; 25M
In this emotional journey, this film shows through the body the ambiguity of a real and imaginary world where a woman searches, dances, fights or plays, without separating what is lived and what is dreamed. Director of photography and music composer Jorge Piquer Rodriguez and the set designer Blanca Añón. Distributed by Playtime Audiovisuals

DANSE MACABRE
Pedro Pires, Canada, 2009; 9M
The director, who worked with Robert Lepage on this stunning short writes, "For a period of time, while we believe it to be perfectly still, lifeless flesh responds, stirs and contorts in a final macabre ballet. Are these spasms merely erratic motions or do they echo the chaotic twists and turns of a past life?" Winner of Toronto Film Festival 2009 Shorts Category.

EN TUS BRAZOS
Edouard Jouret, Matthieu Landour, Fx Goby, France, 2006; 4M
Marvelously accurate tango animated with great style.

ENTANGLEMENT THEORY
Richard James Allen, Karen Pearlman and Gary Hayes, Australia, 2009: 10M
A busy dancing man takes a nap in two realities. His live self dreams and his avatar self dreams. Neither reality is quite so simple when they wake.

GABRIELLE
Stephanie Weber Biron, Canada, 2009: 4M
A little girl discovers a praxinoscope, where she observes animated images of a ballerina. The animated image transforms into a real dancer who transports us from Paris to Montreal in a surrealistic magical world.

JACKIE & JUDY
Phil Harder, USA, 2009; 4M
An ode to Canadian animator, Norman McLaren's PAS DE DEUX, the New York based choreographers Rosanne Chamecki and Andrea Lerner choreographed, and performed their silhouettes which become multiplied by their momentum. See 'Making Of' Clip

Little Ease [outside the box] - Nominated for Jury Prize for Best Short
ami ipapo and matt tarr, USA, 2008, 6:53M
A new take on a classic piece of choreography conceived in 1985 by extreme action pioneer Elizabeth Streb. Through the use of the camera, we remove obstacles to the conversation between performer, environment and witness, taking this inspiring and athletic movement out of its typical context. See trailer

THE LAST MARTINI - Nominated for Jury Prize for Best Short
Vickie Mendoza, USA, 2009; 6:16'
Inspired by the noir films of the 1940s and 1950s and the posters that publicized them, "The Last Martini" plays out the rain-soaked reverie of a man whose psyche becomes tangled in a broken dance of passion and heartbreak.

PINK NAVIGATOR
Naomi Stikeman; Canada, 2009; 6M
Choreographer Crystal Pite with the support of Bravo!FACT explores themes of birth, death, renewal, and the freedom found through reconnecting with one's body.

RAPTURE
Noemie Lafrance, USA, 2008; 6M
Celebrating the opening of Frank Gehry’s  Fisher Center at Bard College in 2008, dancers defy gravity and scale, rush up and down the hills of a metallic desert against the empty sky.

ROMEO & JULIET BEFORE PARTING
Jay Field, Canada, 2009, 5'
Set to the Prokoviev score, an innovative animation spins around 2 dancers.
Produced by Bravo!FACT

SHE
Kathy Rose, USA, 2009; 4M
An insectoid fantasy adapted from a live performance into a mesmerizing short using puppetry, collage, and dance.

SUNSCREEN SERENADE – Nominated for Jury Prize for Best Short
Kriota Willberg, USA, 2009, 5:30
This innovative homage to Busby Berkeley celebrates the merits of skin protection. An EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission 2008, supported by The Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts – Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA”.

THREE'S A CROWD
Andy Wood, UK, 2007; 4:48M
Shot in one continuous take, the rough and ready hand-held camera improvises within the dance, an active participant in a carefree duet.
See clip

TRASH DANCE
Oliver Fergusson-Taylor, 2008, UK, 1M
Hip hop deconstruction of trash heap.

WATERPROOF
Daniel Larrieu, France, 1986; 21M
In a dance for the camera classic shot in a pool, the dancers are half gods/half human who have found their equilibrium underwater.

Celebrating Alwin Nikolais
the Merlin of Dance on his centenary.

Alwin Nikolais was an innovator, a media darling and a cultural icon. He created multi-media dance theater that astonished the dance world in the 1960’s and 1970’s with his audacious use of masks, props, slides, eerie sound scores, slide projections, lighting effects and wild costuming that simultaneously concealed and revealed the dancer in motion. Motion was the key to his philosophy, along with his concept of decentralization which contrasted sharply with the prevailing taste for psychologically based dance narratives.  There were no girl/boy ballets for “Nik,” as he was affectionately known—no gods or goddesses, sex obsessed humans, and, above all, no room for the cult of celebrity.  He preferred a group dynamic but was particularly inspired by kinetically gifted dancers, prominently Carolyn Carlson and Murray Louis. As a choreographer he made his bow to modern dance pioneers Mary Wigman and Hanya Holm but soon evolved into a brilliant abstractionist with an impish sense of the absurd and an unstoppable curiosity about what the body could accomplish in environments he could create. From his Henry Street Settlement days of experimentation to extensive travels and multi media extravaganzas of the later period he remained the wide-eyed explorer of the mind/body connection, a wise child whose universe was an ever evolving garden of visual delights.

Magnetic Orbits: Nik and Murray
together and separately
Kennedy Center Awards excerpt 1987
Joseph Papp introduction to Awards Ceremony, short bio sketch and dance performance of “Tensile Involvement”  14m

NIK AND MURRAY
Christian Blackwood, U.S., 1986; 82M
A portrait of choreographer Nikolais and his dance muse, Murray Louis. The film, not seen since its initial screening, explores the professional and personal lives of two unlikely but reconcilable artists, the first a gentlemanly Connecticut Yankee; the second, a Brooklyn-born charmer and one of the custodians of the “Nik” legacy. Through the intimate relationship of the two choreographers, each a director of his own company (the Nikolais Dance Theater and the Murray Louis Dance Company) the two artists created a dialogue that pushed the boundaries of modern dance in new directions.

Interview and dance excerpts from “Eye on Dance”
Jeff Bush, U.S.; 1984; 29M
Nikolais reminisces about early dance studies and describes of evolution of his groundbreaking work emphasizing the special capabilitiesof videodance.

Repertoire Workshop from New York, 1964; 29M 
This amazing archival record shows members of the first Nikolais Dance Theater Company, arguably the most adventurous of four generations of extraordinary dancers, performing one of his signature works, “Imago,” comprised of segments both light hearted and menacing.

THE RELAY, USA, 1971; 29M
A made for television media work featuring a  potpourri of dance, sound collage and surreal special effects that still send shock waves. This was a creative collaboration between Nikolais, the BBC and NET.

CAROLYN CARLSON: LE REGARD DU GESTE/visual poetry
Elisabeth Kapnist, France, 2009; 52M (in French and English)
Kapnist, with writer Christian Dumais-Lvowski, made this film celebrating the life and times of former Nikolais dancer Carolyn Carlson. Carlson who moved to France in 1968, was inspired and influenced by Nikolais and pays tribute to him from her Paris based Atelier de Paris between rehearsals of one of her famous pieces, “Blue Lady.”

DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES
and DREAM STATE (2009)
Mimi Garrard, US, 2001 and 2009; 18m total
Another former Nikolais/Louis dancer, Garrard has created numerous works for the stage and more recently for video using digital techniques to transform dance material. The first work was performed in The Kitchen, the second, in collaboration with Ailey dancer Sam Roberts.

LIMBO, a work for visual electronics in color
Repertoire Workshop from New York, an arts related television show
Ray Abel, US; 1968; 29M
An experimental work designed for television featuring costumes and effects suggesting aquatic creatures and fish folk caught in a fire storm. Nikolais’ score enhances the antic mood as Murray Louis, Carolyn Carlson and Phyllis Lamhut plunge or float into magical realms.

FUSION
Ed Emshwiller, U.S, 1967; 16M
This rare film was one of two collaborations between the choreographer and the avant garde filmmaker.  If aliens invaded the Museum of Modern Arts, it might look something like this—masked dancers, flying fabric, no beginning, no end, just color and motion.

Dancing For Disney
Special Animation Event

Dancing for Disney 60
Dance scholar Mindy Aloff, author of 2009 book HIPPO IN A TUTU, comments on 40 minutes of animation produced by the Disney Studio and references. Dancing to music was a part of Walt Disney’s own earliest animated films, “the Alice Comedies,” which he made in his native Kansas City, Missouri: and it remained important up to The Jungle Book, the last  Disney feature of Walt’s lifetime. During the 1930s, when the Disney Studio  achieved not only popular success but also the prestige of being considered the cutting-edge of movie art, dancing—ballet , ballroom, Isadora Duncan, tap and vaudeville—was central . Audiences found it in the plot-driven shorts that starred Mickey Mouse and in the “Silly Symphonies,” the music-driven line of Disney films without recurring characters that prepared the way for Fantasia, the all-music extravaganza of 1940. This program will give a taste of the range and artistry of the Disney enterprise as it met the challenges, under Walt’s command, of inventing not only “the illusion of life” but the choreography of dance action.