SSF @ Age Well Center: Dance is Like a Fine Wine

An abstracted film to contribute to the fight against racism. As an immigrant, I have experienced it first hand. This film showcases the beauty and richness of humanity. Nine cultures unite to make art. The dancers will tell you what brings humanity together. We must come together. This project was funded by the Utah Film Commission, Utah Division of Arts and Museums, and BYU Arts Partnership.

SAND, a short experimental dance-for-camera documentary, tells the story of sand dance as it is passed down from father to son.

In light, shadow, and sound, simple steps taken with respect and awe.

This Shaker mourning march cuts to the heart, communicating a universal feeling of loss while evoking a sense of intimacy.

Performers in disabled and non-disabled dance company “Stopgap” move in and out of photos and across tabletops until the whole company meet and perform in unison.

Dancer Ana Laguna, actress Stina Ekblad, and choreographer/director Giovanni Bucchieri join forces in this expressive story about an unexpected meeting.

Danced by three couples of different ages, boy and girl meet on a beach and their love binds them as they dance together through life.

Jennyselt Galata, internationally renown dancer and teacher of Afro Cuban Folklore in Cuba, seeks her successor in preserving the legacy of Afro-Cuban dance among the youth dancers of Juanelo (Havana).

A dance film about the ebb and flow of wind and the movement inspired by it.

The music and dance video Swarm Raid is a surreal trip to the grocery store inspired by an army ant swarm raid.

Dance allegory of the state of confidence.

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.

A witty and whimsical meditation on free will, identity and the afterlife. A narrative made through the collision of unlikely elements: dance, digital code, Franz Liszt, and playful echoes across the history of onscreen physical storytelling, paying homage to films like Modern Times and The Red Shoes. A man in white-winged angel shoes is awakened, then multiplied and manipulated through all the dimensions of infinite black, finally to be returned to his original form and spat out onto the junk heap of history.

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.

In a blend of abstraction and realism, Solitude, Darkness, Light explores the confluence of place, time, people and emotions. Contrasting worlds of the future and the past and the still and the moving take the viewer across time in search of a new perspective on the present, as experienced through the lenses of sounds, animation and imagery.

A young Japanese-American man seeks guidance from the past in order to overcome his modern identity crisis. Meanwhile in 1942, his great grandfather escapes an incarceration camp.

Remixing her archive of 16mm film and years of dance cinematography, Siebens creates a messy yet emotional montage, using visual phasing to jump-cut across time and individual dancers. Shot in seminal dance environments Ballett Frankfurt in Germany and The Western Front in Canada, the film mixes professional and amateur dancers, probing their gaze and the search for the sublime through simple improvisational gestures.

A house in decay, a woman embodying this site. Shift is a site-specific screendance bringing to the forefront questions on aging, identity and the body.

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.

Boy meets girl at a coffee shop, and the two are thrown into a mud wrestling ring to find a common path forward, while their best friends act as coaches.

A screendance anthology weaving together stories of 2020: A man waits out the pandemic and to be reunited with his wife. A rabid Karen terrorizes her community. Reality TV contestants quarantine together for a shot at love. A forbidden dinner party materializes spontaneously.

Flood is a depiction of time and its build in spacial dynamics. Showing moments of interaction that dwell in surreal forms of suspension.

The images of an older and a younger couple become more intertwined as time goes on.

A dancer and a ceramicist enjoy one another’s processes and products.

Nine dancers and singers travel across open farmlands, parched roads, and moonlit fields to find refuge in an abandoned place of worship. Through a complex series of Turkish usul patterns designed to ignite emotional states of journey and light, the group finds connection within their company and solace in the sheltered space.

A dream-like story of impermanence told through dance and stop-motion painting.