SSF Presents: Dance is Like a Fine Wine

Memory House is a short dance theatre film exploring the physicality of memory, the body as home and the Jungian archetype of the house as a metaphor for self. The body becomes a site for both sanctuary and confinement in repeating patterns of human behaviour. A spiraling journey through time and memory as one woman looks back on her past to re-create her future.

The Room Inside is a short documentary film recording the process and reflections of the cast and crew of Memory House. Originally a much longer live dance theatre production, the COVID-19 pandemic required the project and participants to change, in order to continue their work, and to overcome new challenges. The artwork is also remarkable for translating theories of mind and memory into movement, and the way this paralleled the lived experiences of the people making it.

A performance art film featuring professional dancers, soft sculpture and an original score. Filmed and produced in the early months of the pandemic, This Holding addresses the burdens, anxieties, and hopes of these unprecedented times.

Open Arms Dance Project is deeply committed to the inclusion of all people in the making and viewing of our dance performances. It is with that focus that poetic descriptions were added to this dance film, creating a rich, dynamic, and accessible experience for all viewers, including people who are blind. Root, Grow, Release, Repeat features the solo choreography of 12 Open Arms Dance Project dancers. It was created during online rehearsals in the Fall of 2020 and filmed at the Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise, Idaho. Many dancers made full artistic choices in creating their own solos, while the natural, non-choreographed movement of other dancers was celebrated. The descriptive and poetic script creates a rich, dynamic, and accessible experience for all viewers, including people who are blind.

When a homeless violinist desperate to get to her destination is confronted by a train inspector, she fantasizes that she’s part of an old Hollywood musical alongside the passengers that ignore her.

A tale of lost letters & paper boats. From acclaimed Irish dance company CoisCéim Dance Theatre, the film delves into the mysteries of the sea – as events of Dublin Bay’s past collide with the present, bringing history to life in a bold, physical short film. Hundreds of lives and letters were lost at sea when mailboat RMS Leinster was torpedoed in Dublin Bay. In How to Sink a Paper Boat this devastating past collides with the present when two people meet. Out for a walk along the sea wall, Cora comes across a letter in the water that beckons her to a lighthouse and its keeper, Michael. Her arrival propels the historical event into our time in an emotional embodiment of a tragedy at sea.

Wake is a short dance film which explores and responds to modern attitudes around loss and grief, taking inspiration from different rituals and funeral traditions from around the world. Filmed on the stark and shifting terrain of Dartmoor, Wake steers us through one woman’s journey of grief.

What would compel you to go against the status quo and bring up your family as Irish speakers in English-speaking Ireland of the 1950s to 1980s? In I Modh Rúin (in secret), Ríonach Ní Néill blends film, dance, interviews and music to tell the story of five women who did just that.

Memory (“Memoria”) inspired by the ethnic and cultural diversity of Latin America, explores the themes of mental health, isolation and the imagination of a senior feminine artist, “Florecita,” who keeps growing in her mind whilst the body that she has lived in so vibrantly in the past is painfully shutting down. A strange encounter pulls her out of the isolation of her house and she goes on a journey through the city of Bogota, meeting diverse performers of different ages, genders and backgrounds, all remembrances of her life’s story. At each stage these memories appear to her through different global styles of dance, moving from love, nostalgia, joy to pain when she finally finds herself in the bustling centre of the city alone and confused. Her memory fading away…