SSF@NoBo – This Breath Together

Sans Souci Festival is proud to be partnering for the first time with NoBo Art District. This event is unlike anything else on our season — no film screening, pure video installation, with a one-night-only live performance.

Accessibility: ramp access available on the side of the building. Covid-19 protocol information

Everyone’s invited, and it’s even family-friendly!

SSF presents a dance film installation, including a 4 week video exhibition and a live performance event with opportunities for professional dancers and the wider public to engage with the breathing body as a way of dancing.

Our host for this event is NoBo Art District, and the venue is The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments on Broadway in North Boulder. The 4-week video installation will take over the gallery, and the performance will take place inside the gallery, as well as outside surrounding it.

Sans Souci’s Community Dance Film Project was created to engage Boulder dancers of many genres and to inspire our local community with all we have to offer. Dancers from eight local professional companies are represented — Boulder Ballet, Frequent Flyers Productions, Cindy Brandle Dance Company, Life/Art Dance Ensemble, BEAM, VisKosity Dance Collective, Block 1750, and Spark Theatre. Each dancer was paired with a location at one of the City of Boulder’s most iconic outdoor sites — Chautauqua, Dushanbe Tea House, the Flatirons, etc. — and asked to create movement along a theme: “The first fresh breath in a long time.” Genres include ballet, contemporary, tap, samba, aerial dance, waacking, and house; collaborators include members of the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, those with disabilities, and dancers on the older end of the age spectrum. An original score features contributions by two local musicians, a Brazilian master drummer, a voice actor, and a poet.

Video Installation

The video footage we crafted, aside from being shaped into a short film, This Breath Together, which screened at our Premiere at Museum of Boulder in September 2021, will now be used to activate the space at the Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments. We have transformed this urban/industrial gallery space to bring a bit of the beautiful Boulder outdoors inside, and create an immersive but casual atmosphere for taking in this four-week video installation and one-night-only live performance. The installation assembles all the elements of the sound score — including poetry, music, and environment sounds dismantled and rearranged — with never before seen video footage of every dancer in the project, and a chance for you to dance as part of the installation.

Live Performance

Performances starting every few minutes from 4-6pm, to accommodate for as much (physically distanced) audience capacity as possible, including inside and surrounding the gallery. Audiences will be able to dance with (as part of) the installation, at a live capture video projection station.

Performers

• Keith Haynes, VisKosity Dance Collective
• Peg Volpe Posnick, choreographer
• Jessica Riggs, Life/Art Dance Ensemble & Cindy Brandle Dance Company
• Marla A. Schulz, Spark Theatre

If you would like to support the Community Dance Film project and help us pay local professional dancers, you can donate here and check the box for “Community Dance Film: This Breath Together” to make a contribution.