Virtual Screenings 2021

The subtle movement of a dancer’s arms invites three panels of film into one frame in this micro-symphony of sounds and images in which the changing light evokes the passing of times. Human and non-human, interior and exterior co-exist in this highly improvisational yet serendipitous portrait of a changing Seattle in late August under a fire-choked sun. Co-authored by Caryn Cline, Linda Fenstermaker and Reed O’Beirne on the same Bolex 16mm camera with a lens masked to subdivide the frame of the film roll into thirds. Collaborating to subdivide a 16mm film frame into thirds, the three filmmakers present their separately-shot-segments simultaneously within one spatial plane. From the interplay of these three points of view, emerges a cinematic conversation based on a horizontal compositional logic within the shared frame. This combined connotative-relationship between the subframes evokes a spectacle of fractured spatial and temporal perspective. Emily Durand’s choreography is designed to accommodate her performance for a film that’s edited entirely in-camera.

In a feeling of communion with nature, an herbalist ruminates about the practice of braiding strings from vegetable fibers. She connects with her ancestors through her gestures, experiencing the body and nature in a deeply connected relationship.

What if every time you do something, you have to do it again? And what if someone is looking?

This film is restricted to viewers in the USA

The severed head of a choreographer is held captive by an eagle on a desert island. With a dazzling mastery of drawing and painting, this animated short unexpectedly takes us into the sensitive world of an artist madly in love with dance.

Faced by the global pandemic and reawakening of racism, a performer dedicates a moment for personal catharsis through movement.

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

The Ocean on My Fourth Floor is a dance film about how I feel at home during this pandemic: protected, caught, transfixed, looking for acceptance of the situation, creating the peaceful moments I need.

Strings explores the rich possibilities for connection, communication and creative expression through dance. Bringing together Barrowland Ballet’s dance artists and young people with complex needs, Strings celebrates children’s ability to take the lead and express themselves physically.

A week at the Fleury-Mérogis Remand Center confronts us with the challenge of conceiving the condition of an inmate as a terrain of adventure. Combining bodily exercises, true and false stories, a confusion is created between the prison situation and a fiction imagined with the inmates. Out of step with the predominant machismo, using dance as a tool of inner escape, the prisoners gradually experience the pleasure of sensation. A trust is woven, a soft bond emerges.

The Nangiarkoothu Artist is a portrait dance film that uses a multi-narrative approach of traditional storytelling and a staged dance performance to create a poetic profile of a young Nangiarkoothu artist, who practices and teaches a 2000 year old Sanskrit dance/theatre art form in Kerala, India. The audience is invited to become part of the dancer’s world and leave with a new awareness of an art form so ancient and yet little known to the larger world.

This film is restricted to viewers in Colorado, USA

The history, lineage and future progressions of jazz dance. The story of Jazz Dance is a complex one, it goes to the very heart of humanity. It is a story of triumph over adversity, oppression and privilege as well as a celebration, because ultimately, what all people have in common is rhythm and a basic human need to get down.

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.

Set in an enigmatic space containing a bathtub, we initially see an interplay between the water and each dancer as they tentatively touch, experience, and immerse themselves in it. Filmed on location in a warehouse in St. Paul Minnesota, the dancers eventually transcend the confines of the tub to the floor of the space. Moving deftly between the pillars they jump, run, and sway. This work creates a world that is unfettered and unconcerned with glamourising dance. We see dirt on the dancer’s feet and underwear riding up, its presence grounding us in the moment on screen.

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

In lieu of an improvisation by three musicians and a dancer in front of a live audience, Some Day transpired in a New Orleans bar in September of 2020 to an audience of bottles, tables, and instruments.

In the moorland, a young lady walks to the place where she can hide her secrets and face her phantoms.

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

Set in the extraordinary years of the 2020s, “The Wonder Years” looks both back and forward through the eyes of Eli, the oldest of five children in the Motley family, on the tribulations and joys of growing up in the United States as a twenty something black male. With music by Laurence Hobgood, the low-fi anti-tech home movie style of the work is a nod to classic 80’s sitcoms with an open, unapologetic, and ultimately vulnerable journey filled with all the feels and even some much-needed levity.

A dancer is shot from 16 camera angles and edited at a disturbing rate. And then suddenly, nothing happens. Intrigued? Watch on.

An Apology follows a man who has lost touch with what matters most – real human connection. As he goes through the motions of furniture shopping, we get a glimpse into his imagination, filled with movement and dance. Danielle Agami’s narration tackles emotions that stem from our collective isolation, what it means to be an immigrant artist in America, and highlights the spiritual sacrifices we make when we cling to damaging ideals dictated by modern society.

Waking up to an alternate reality, a man encounters an aged sewing machine and a batik left on the pedestal that arouses his desires. As he interacts with the batik, he struggles to break free from an invisible restraint and soon merges with its structure with graceful fluidity, finally free.

Through a dialogue between movement and landscape, Lazarus reflects on the objectification of the woman body in film. The famous quote by Edgar Allan Poe “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” triggers a succession of falls and recoveries that escape the poetic by trying too hard to find it.