Statement about Dance on Camera Festival 2010
from DFA's Artistic Director Deirdre Towers

Did anyone predict a year ago how apt would be the idiomatic expression ‘You
can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ So many metaphoric omelettes
have been made in the last year and so many “eggs”/ lives have been broken, so
many systems and structures have been shaken. According to the internet site,
The Phrase Finder, this expression is a loose translation from the Russian phrase
“to chop down a forest, splinters will fly” (“lyes rubyat, shchepki letyat”). Both the
Russian and English expressions have survived for a century because of their
ability to create instant understanding of the chaotic repercussions of change.
Not all of us who profess to want change are fully prepared to duck those “flying
splinters.”

Director/dancer Naomi Stikeman from Canada along with choreographer Crystal
Pite filmed an unforgettable image in their 2009 Bravo!FACT supported short PINK NAVIGATOR. We see a woman extend her leg out of bed to gingerly place an erotically arched barefoot on a floor strewn with eggs. The eggs, outside the kitchen and the barnyard, seem to be a poetic displacement and a potent symbol of birth bypassed. As the dancer gracefully passes through the treacherous terrain, leaving the eggs intact, we appreciate her deft avoidance of walking on egg shells. The 2010 Dance on Camera Festival offers a treasure of uncanny images. Perhaps more than technical virtuosity (though we are thoroughly charmed by the Cambodian artist Sokvannara Sar profiled in DANCING ACROSS BORDERS) or screen adaptations of superb stage works (though hinted at in URBAN BALLET), the participants in the Dance on Camera Festival will remember the bold images of the visual language of the filmmakers.

I was excited about meeting Blanca Añón, the set designer of CINETICA nominated by the Jury for the Festival prize. The environments she created for this half hour work directed by Ana Cembrero are extraordinary. A New YorkUniversity/MFA Candidate, 2012, Blanca just wrote a paper titled, “Evolution of the Christian Church Space.” What a provocative area of study. How did the spiritual space for each religion become defined? How do dancers, many who consider their performing space sacred, envision the cinematic environments ideal for what they have to share?

Many say the pursuit of making dance films is akin to creating a personal language. In place of written symbols or sounds, a dance filmmaker communicates through images that involve the body, mind, spirit. Don't rush out to buy the Rosetta Stone software to study the language of dance films. It doesn’t exist yet. But how can one learn the secrets of creating with this language? Start by attending Dance On Camera Festival 2010.