SSF @ Peak Academy of Dance

  • September 16, 2023
  • 6pm screening at the Indigo Bridge Theater
  • open to the public
  • tickets available soon
ballet dancers in neon-colored clothing and sneakers leap high in the air

Sans Souci is teaming up with Peak Academy of Dance for our first ever collaboration! The films selected – listed below – represent our 20th Anniversary Showcase, with some of our favorite films from our twenty year archive. The work of 14 filmmakers from around the world includes numerous dance forms and film styles, from narrative to abstract and even claymation! Open to the public and offered for the Colorado mountain community, this beginner-friendly program is a great first step into the world of dance cinema!

Indigo Bridge Theater
26437 Confier Rd
Conifer, CO 80433

program of films

This screening runs approximately 75 minutes.

a young dancer stands in water, cupping some as it falls from her hand

Samskara

2020 / United States / 7 min

Directed by Angela Rosales Challis
Produced by Chelsea Alley, Heather Francis
Dancing by Joseph Run Through, Delfine Uwimbabazi, Jyothsna Sainath, Jamaika, Sebastian Forbes, Akiko Kaneshiro, Joshua Perkins, Presley Fewkes, Sheyenne Utai
Written by Angela Rosales Challis, Conor Long

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.

a dancer wearing tennis shorts and shoes does a handstand on large, smooth rocks next to the ocean

Animalz

2007 / United Kingdom / 3 min

Directed by Sergio Cruz
Produced by Ed Cooper
Choreography by JP Omari
Featuring B3 Brighton BBoys
Dancing by B3 Brighton BBoys
Cinematography by Martin Gajewski
Music Composed by Sergio Cruz, Filipe Galante, Christos Fanaras

Sergio Cruz’s film Animalz takes the urban B-Boy Skills of Brighton and Hove’s B3 Boys into the city’s surrounding natural landscapes. Co-choreographed by BBC Strictly Dance Fever’s JP Omari, the sixteen 8-14 year-old dancers were encouraged to bring out the animal in themsleves. Shot on location in Brighton at Stanmer Park, Devil’s Dyke and Telscombe Beach.

a young dancer sits in front of an older dancer in a chair

Off Ground

2013 / Netherlands / 12 min

Directed by Boudewijn Koole
Produced by Iris Lammertsma
Choreography by Jakop Ahlbom
Featuring Jakop Ahlbom
Dancing by Louise Lecavalier, Antoine Masson
Cinematography by Melle van Essen
Edited by Boudewijn Koole
Music Composed by Alex Simu

Woman and boy, table and chair, wall and water – a simple, powerful duet.

a young woman in an overcoat with a giant, brightly lit balloon

Elon + Emmanuelle

2012 / United States / 7 min

Directed by Natalie Galazka
Produced by Natalie Galazka, Melissa C. O’Brien
Choreography by Elon Höglund, Emmanuelle Lê Phan
Dancing by Elon Höglund, Emmanuelle Lê Phan
Cinematography by Melissa C. O’Brien
Edited by Ross Baldisserotto
Music Composed by Garth Stevenson

Charmed dancers observe their own duet in a magical street art fantasy.

a woman in a tank top and no pants reaches her right arm behind a stone pillar; her hand, enlarged, emerges from the other side of the pillar

HOME ALONE

2013 / Israel / 2 min

Directed by Adi Halfin
Produced by Tamir Eting, Noam Eidelman, Adi Halfin
Featuring Batsheva Dance Company Ensemble
Dancing by Tamir Eting, Noam Eidelman, Rani Lebzelter, Shane Scopatz, Mario Bermudez Gil, Eduard Turull, Keren Lurie-Pardes, Shani Licht, Ayelet Nadav, Mariko Kakizaki, Oz Shoshan, Gil Shachar, Or Schraiber, Maya Tamir, Shaked Leibzirers, Ron Matalon, Ori Kroll
Cinematography by Roman Linetsky
Edited by Shahar Amarilio
Music Composed by Locust

Combining choreography with improvisation, a company of young dancers creates an atmosphere of “parental absence” in an abandoned building.

a female flamenco dancer extends her arms with closed eyes, just as a subway train arrives

Moving Yerevan

2014 / Armenia / 8 min

Directed by Jevan Chowdhury
Produced by Nare Aghababyan
Choreography by Jevan Chowdhury
Featuring National State Ensemble, independent artists
Cinematography by Jevan Chowdhury
Music Composed by Danny Odom

This short marries the people of Yerevan — the capital of Armenia and one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities — with the modern day metropolis. Created in public spaces in 3 days and 3 nights.

clay-mation dancer in a white tutu with a coffee cup

Groggy Grugg

2018 / United States / 4 min

Directed by Conor C. Long
Produced by Conor C. Long
Choreography by Brianna Lopez
Featuring University of Utah Screendance
Dancing by Grugg
Cinematography by Conor C. Long
Music Composed by William Cannon

A claymation screendance short film about that terrible every day struggle to get out of bed for that first delicious cup of coffee.

ballet dancers in neon-colored clothing and sneakers leap high in the air

Never Standing Still: Hong Kong Ballet’s 40th Anniversary

2019 / United States / 2 min

Directed by Dean Alexander
Produced by Mikyung Kim
Choreography by Septime Webre
Featuring Design Army
Dancing by Hong Kong Ballet
Music Composed by Squeak E Clean Studios
Creative/Art Director Pum Lefebure
Executive Producer Jake Lefebure

After successfully redefining Hong Kong Ballet’s brand last year, our goal this year — their 40th anniversary — was to establish Hong Kong Ballet as an institution of national prestige and reach new audiences with the Ballet’s vision. the people of Hong Kong needed to see themselves reflected in the Ballet. Our strategy led us to blend traditional and pop-culture colors, tutus and street clothes, Chinese opera-inspired and contemporary makeup, and a backdrop of iconic Hong Kong landmarks to celebrate the Ballet’s heritage and its spirit of innovation. Hong Kong Ballet, like the city itself, is “Never Standing Still.” The film went viral and earned more than 2 million views.

T.I.A. (THIS is Africa)

2015 / France / 7 min

Directed by Matthieu Maunier-Rossi
Produced by Matthieu Maunier-Rossi
Choreography by Aïpeur Foundou
Dancing by Aïpeur Foundou
Cinematography by Matthieu Maunier-Rossi
Music Composed by Jon Hopkins

Aïpeur Foundou is a Congolese dancer and choreographer. Amidst some popular areas of Brazzaville, he shows us one possible way to freedom.

a cutout photograph of a boy dancing, superimposed on a dumpster in front of a mountain city landscape

Erêkauã

2021 / Brazil / 1 min

Directed by Paulo Accioly
Produced by Estranha Força
Choreography by Ernane Ferreira
Dancing by Kauã

Kauã dances in the hill, like a bird of prey.

cut-out photos of dancers sit atop a desk as though they are miniature people

Stopgap in Stop Motion

2016 / United Kingdom / 5 min

Directed by Stephen Featherstone
Produced by Stephen Featherstone
Choreography by Lucy Bennett
Featuring Stopgap Dance Company
Dancing by Amy Butler, Laura Jones, Nadenh Poan, Chris Pavia, Hannah Sampson, David Toole, David Willdridge, Tomos Young
Cinematography by Stephen Featherstone
Music Composed by Dougie Evans

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.

a man does a headstand on a small cluster of rocks near the ocean shore, head obscured

Amser / Time

2022 / United Kingdom / 6 min

Directed by Deborah Light
Produced by Laura Drane
Choreography by Light Ladd Emberton

Moving through time along Bae Ceredigion/Cardigan Bay, we arrive at today’s climate crisis. Sarn Gynfelyn is revealed every low tide and looks like a road into the sea. In fact, it is a glacial moraine laid down 20,000 years ago when ice sheets melted, and it marks the beginning of the global conditions that have enabled human expansion. At Borth, a 6,000 year old forest flourished for a few thousand years. Submerged by the sea, it has since been re-exposed in recent storms. Sarn Gynfelyn and Borth’s forest are both cited as supporting the Cantre’r Gwaelod legend of lost fertile lands in Cardigan Bay, but the geology tells a different story. Moving forwards, we arrive at Fairbourne, a seaside town built on saltmarsh and English industrial wealth. It is now set to become the first UK town to be decommissioned due to sea level rise. It will be demolished and returned to salt marsh and will have existed for less than 200 years. In the intertidal zone, between land and sea, three people move, with arresting visual imagery through these three remarkable sites.

two dancers on a pole reach high and wide, set against a mountain backdrop

Axis Mundi

2020 / France / 2 min

Directed by Patrick Foch
Choreography by Céline Garbay, Loriana Lorenzon
Dancing by Céline Garbay, Loriana Lorenzon
Cinematography by Benjamin Ziegler

The “axis mundi” is a connection between heaven and earth, between the divine and the material. With this gravity-defying choreography, imagined and performed at the top of a mountain and on the verticality of a pole dance bar, I wanted to deliver my own vision of this “axis mundi.” Two bodies merge and evolve precisely between earth and sky, in a quest for physical and spiritual elevation along this invisible thread.

two bearded men in a large, heavy tent dance raucously while holding cans of beer

COLD STORAGE

2016 / Finland / 9 min

Directed by Thomas Freundlich
Produced by Lumikinos Production Oy
Choreography by Thomas Freundlich
Dancing by Valtteri Raekallio, Eero Vesterinen
Cinematography by Thomas Freundlich
Edited by Jukka Nykänen
Music Composed by Kimmo Pohjonen

COLD STORAGE is a short dance film that pays homage to the virtuosic physical performances and melancholy comedy of the classic silent screen. On a desolate arctic shore, a lonely fisherman discovers his prehistoric counterpart frozen in the ice, and thaws him out as his newfound soul brother.