Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
and Hedwig Dances
presents
Dance for the Camera
October 24 & 25, 2007

as curated by Jan Bartoszek & Sarah Best

6pm Networking Reception (10/24) , 1 Garland
6pm Dance Film Now: Panel Discussion (10/25)
6:30pm Dance Film Screening Claudia Cassidy Theater

This two evening program presents innovative examples of dance film created by local, national and international artists. The Wednesday screening is complimented by a networking reception to bring together dance professionals, students and others whoare creating or interested in creating dance film work in Chicago. A panel discussion that explores the trends and current state of the dance film art form precedes the Thursday viewing, moderated by Susan Manning, Professor of English, Theatre and Performance Studies, Northwestern University.

FREE admission.

Program 1 - WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24

RE-SOUND
John Boesche & Logan Kibens, Chicago/U.S., 2004,
Choreographer: Shirley Mordine, Dancer: Scott Putnam,
Composer: David Pavkovich; 6m28s
Re-Sound invites the audience to view a solo performance from two perspectives. The camera first captures the dance from the vantage point of an audience member who is viewing the work from a distance. In a second take, the filmmaker "dances" with the dancer, bringing you as close to the work as you can get.

BLACK SPRING
Benoit Dervaux (France) 26 min., 2002 Choreographer: Heddy Maalen;
Dance Company: Compagnie Ivoire;
Dancers: Simone Goris, Serge Anagondu; Producer: Heure
d'Ete; Sponsors: Arte, Sinsa Finn, Derives;
Distributor: Ideale Audience International
The simplicity and purity of the filmmaking approach is deceptive, as the film challenges Western notions of African bodies in movement. The dance is interspersed with scenes of contemporary life in Africa which serve to heighten awareness of the social and political sensitivities inherent modern African dance.

IT'S ACHING LIKE BIRDS
Lucy Cash & Lin Hixon, U.K. & Chicago/U.S., 2001,
Cinematographer: Pete Biagi, Performers: Karen Christopher, Matthew Goulish, Bryan Saner; 10m
it's aching like birds draws on material from Goat Island's performance It's an earthquare in my heart. Each section of the film is a kind of postcard from a
world concerned with the construction of memory, the aftermath of historical destruction, the place of nature, the way one might learn to love the world, and
the way one might say to oneself, "I am not afraid."

THE COST OF LIVING
Lloyd Newson, 2005, UK, 35m
A winner of staggering proportions! Lloyd Newson of London's famed DV8 takes us to a faded seaside town where street performers David and Eddie struggle to
find work and romance. A film that hurls provocations and scalding humor at notions of how the fit and unfit are supposed to act. THE COST OF LIVING sets itself apart by defining a potent new direction for the concept of dance for the camera.

PROGRAM TWO - THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25

BITTERSWEET
David Rousseve, U.S., 2005; 15m
Dancer/choreographer/director David Rousseve explores the relationships of three women of color to their husbands, lovers, and to one another in this alternately lyrical and violent look at race and gender politics. From the maker of the award winningPULL YOUR HEAD TO THE MOON.

'TIL THE LAST SYLLABLE OF RECORDED TIME
Marianne M. Kim, U.S., 2006, Performers: Peter Carpenter, Julia Rhoads, Zachary Wittenburg, Lia Bonfilio, Szewai Lee, Music: Joshua Abrams; 13 min
Inspired by the ambition, guilt and death of Lady Macbeth, this experimental short film is influenced by the imagistic dance theater of Japanese Butoh. Through
surreal imagery and a non-linear narrative, the film re-imagines the psychology of a woman and man struggling for power.

CONSTRUCTION
Susan Aldous, U.S./Chicago, 2007, Music: Aphex Twin, 4 min 7 sec
Construction is a comparative study of the accumulation of object clutter and its effects on body architecture. Bricolage, the practice of transforming "found" material by incorporating them into something new, was used to inspire movement development and facilitate the comparison.

MINOTAUR-EX
Bruno Aveillan, France, 2001, 9m
Inspired by the Greek myth of the Minotaur, this cine-dream brings us into the struggle of a three-faced monster attempting a metamorphosis of his being. Choreographer Philippe Combes worked with a score by Herve Taminiaux. For more info., see cie-cavecanem.com/

A HERETIC'S PRIMER ON LOVE AND EXERTION
Danièle Wilmouth, Chicago/U.S., 2007,
Writer/Performers: Kym Olsen, Trevor Martin, Director of Photography: Peter Biagi; Music: Mark Messing /
Maestro-matic, Split Lip Rayfield; 24m
Opposites and equals, villains and victims, twins and lovers, performance artists Trevor Martin & Kym Olsen slip from monologue to dance, trousers to dresses,
female to male, in a collection of 29 related incidents. A Heretic's Primer on Love & Exertion is an experimental performance film, which reveals the duality of identity -- probing the construction of gender, the manipulation of desire, and the collapse of love's meaning in a context where human interactions are strictly predefined.

Dance Film Now: Panel Discussion
October 25, 6pm, Claudia Cassidy Theater
A panel discussion that explores the trends and current state of the dance film art form precedes the Thursday viewing, moderated by Susan Manning, Professor of English, Theatre and Performance Studies, Northwestern University.

Susan Manning has pursued her research interest in dance studies, an emergent discipline, by working through the more established fields of drama, theatre, and performance studies. As a Professor of English, Theatre and Performance Studies at Northwestern University, she teaches the history and theory of twentieth-century theatrical performance, including dance, drama, and music theatre. She is the author of two books: Ecstasy and the Demon (1993; 2nd ed. 2006) traces the shift from modernist bodies to fascist bodies in the works of Mary Wigman, Germany’s leading dancer between the two world wars. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion (2004) explores changing relations between modern dancers and African-American concert dancers in New York City from the Red Decade of the 1930s to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Manning currently serves as president of the Society of Dance History Scholars. In 2003 she convened the Chicago Seminar on Dance and Performance as a network for area dancers, researchers, and educators and as a forum for exploring diverse means for building dance audiences in Chicago. The following year she founded Arts in Community, a field of interest fund within the Evanston Community Foundation dedicated to expanding local arts funding and promoting community-based arts leadership. In recognition of her community outreach, Manning received a 2006 Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award from the Illinois Humanities Council.

Norah Zuniga-Shaw (Panelist)
Norah Zuniga-Shaw (BA Hampshire College, MFA-Dance UCLA) is a dance artist and theorist working in the U.S. and Latin America. She is director for dance and technology at The Ohio State University Department of Dance. Zuniga-Shaw was assistant editor of “Envisioning Dance on Film and Video” (Routledge,2002), and is currently working with William Forsythe and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design to create an interactive DVD score for “One Flat Thing, Reproduced.” Recent commissions include three new dances for television (WOSU-PBS) and performances for NANO at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Danièle Wilmouth (Panelist)
Danièle Wilmouth is an artist working primarily in experimental and documentary filmmaking. She creates hybrids of performance art, dance and cinema, which exploit the shifting hierarchies between live and screen space. During a six-year residency in Japan from 1990 -1996, she studied butoh dance with Yoshito Ohno, Maro Akaji, Byakko-sha, and was a member of Katsura Kan's Butoh Troupe - The Saltimbanques for more than three years. In 1993 she co-founded Hairless Films, an independent filmmaking collective. Her films and videos have screened in festivals, museums, galleries, and on television worldwide. She is currently a faculty member in the film and videodepartments of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College. More info at: www.HairlessFilms.org

This program was made possible through DFA's touring program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, NYSCA, the members of DFA, and the Susan Braun Trust. To become a touring partner, see the Touring Partnership Page

 

Top of the Page