Virtual Screenings 2026

In this episode of Chinatown Shorts, At the Heart of Barrio Chino: Tusán Perspectives in Lima we explore Capón Barrio Chino, Lima’s vibrant Chinatown, through the personal narratives of fourth-generation Chinese Peruvians, or Tusáns. Moyra Silva, Marco Loo, and Angie Chang delve into their Chinese Peruvian ancestry, connecting their professional backgrounds to their heritage. Through their stories, we gain insight into the complexities of embracing a mixed-race identity and reflection on Peruvian identity, and the resilience of the Tusán community, expanding perspectives on Chinese immigration in the Americas. This film honors the struggles and lasting cultural contributions of Chinese immigrants to Peruvian society, uplifting the perseverance of this community made up of multiracial descendants today.

Relating in times of crisis. A site-specific screendance that explores the relationship between humanity and nature, raising awareness of ecological challenges and seeking — if only partially — to remediate damaged environments. Drawing on environmental art practices, the work opens space for dialogue about our precarious entanglement with the natural world, inviting us to reimagine and reconfigure that relationship. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s posthuman theories.

Synopsis coming soon.

During a business trip, a man arrives at a hotel beside a forest. From his window, he follows the figure of a dancer disappearing among the trees and discovers a strange ritual: five couples engaged in a dance battle. Little by little, he stops being a spectator and becomes part of the collective celebration. Between reality and hallucination, the film explores the contemporary desire to escape isolation and reconnect through shared celebration.

The last military dictatorship in Argentina lasted from March 24, 1976 to December 10, 1983, leaving a deep impact on society. Some of the horrific figures that can be summarized are: 800 clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers, 500 stolen babies, 40,000 exiles and 30,000 missing people. In a territory where the body stops being form and becomes living memory, a group of nine dancers traces, through movement, a sensitive cartography of equality. The piece displays a choreographic framework that oscillates between fragility and collective strength, where each gesture reveals tensions, links and mutual support, dismantling hierarchies to give rise to a community in constant construction. From a contemporary perspective, Limbo addresses the traces of the last Argentine civic-military-ecclesiastical-business dictatorship, focusing on identity, memory and absences. Promoted from a space that articulates art and human rights, the work puts those historically invisible bodies in the foreground, turning them into protagonists of a narrative that demands freedom, diversity and full existence. The camera does not limit itself to recording: it approaches, gets involved, breathes to the rhythm of the performers, amplifying the poetic and political dimension of each sequence. The videodance is configured as a device for encounter and reflection, where the intimate and the collective intertwine to challenge the viewer and open questions about the present: which bodies are seen, which are left out, and how is a more just society built in movement?

Manuel Liñán is a flamenco dancer and choreographer who has transformed the art form, making it freer and more contemporary. Intellectual and deeply expressive, he combines impeccable technique with a vivid imagination. Recipient of Spain’s National Dance Award, he performs to sold-out theatres around the world, yet he feels most alive in the tablao: a space of barely twelve square metres, with the audience pressed close, where every breath can be heard and where he is compelled to sustain extraordinary focus and honesty. Without them, he could not move an audience. The Flight of the Shawl, filmed somewhere between documentary and dreamlike journey, is a soleá performed with a bata de cola—the traditional flamenco dress with a long train — and a shawl, elements historically associated with women’s flamenco.

Organising Principles of Experience is an experimental short in which an AI model, tuned to the writings and sensibilities of Maya Deren, collaborates with the filmmaker to imagine new films. It explores memory, possession, and the digital afterlife, questioning what remains when the past becomes data and how an artist might lay claim to her absent hero.

Chair Deconstruction is a two-part dance piece exploring the drama and comedy of communal healing. Part 1 explores accountability and mercy in a support-group setting. In Part 2, the dancers deconstruct reality and embody transformation by embracing their delightful weirdness.

While cleaning a pole dance studio, a middle-aged woman drifts from routine into reverie.

An intimate portrait of JayWAN’s birthplace, seen through an embodied practice of belonging.

Drawing on the inspiring verse of 13th-century Sufi poet Shams of Tabriz, this short dance film weaves Odissi dance with an original music composition to explore resilience — not as endurance, but as transformation. Choreographed and performed through the refined vocabulary of Odissi, one of India’s oldest classical dance forms, the work places ancient spiritual poetry in direct dialogue with contemporary emotional experience. The cycle of sorrow and joy is rendered not as narrative, but as embodied knowledge — moving through the body as Shams’ words move through one’s inner world. The original score bridges Eastern and Western sensibilities, anchoring the film in a sonic world that is at once intimate and expansive. At its heart, the film is a meditation on hope as a transcendental force — not contingent on circumstance, but woven into the fabric of existence itself.

Conversation between order and chaos. The self we present and the one we suppress.

Dream’s Descent is a hauntingly surreal dance film that traces the journey of a solitary dancer as he navigates a dreamlike landscape fractured by memory, identity and desire. Drawn into a shifting world where time dissolves and space contracts, he encounters fragmented versions of himself, each embodying a suppressed emotion, forgotten trauma or repressed aspiration. Through ritualistic choreography and symbolic confrontations, these encounters blur the line between self and shadow. As the dancer spirals deeper into the labyrinth of his subconscious, the movement becomes a language of reckoning. The film is not about conquering the self, but integrating it, emerging not whole, but awakened, transformed by the very fragmentation that once threatened to undo him and ready to face whatever comes next.

According to scientists, global warming may bring severe consequences to the future of humankind, and addressing this environmental crisis requires the collective effort of people across all nations. The digital ink–generated video art installation and dance performance Frost and Flame employs the textures of ink painting techniques and a visual language of geometric abstraction, combined with a color transition from cold to warm and a stylistic shift from structured geometry reminiscent of frozen ice to gestural abstraction evocative of water and fire. Together, these elements metaphorically portray the transformation of glacial ice as it melts — from frost to flame — issuing an urgent warning to humanity. In the final sequence, the re freezing of the text credit symbolizes the hope that, through unified human action, restoration remains possible. The integration of ink painting with environmental consciousness not only brings this classical art form into contemporary discourse on global ecological issues, but also allows Chinese cultural aesthetics to manifest renewed vitality in the digital era. Meanwhile, the immersive installation and dance performance reflect the profound wisdom embedded in classical Chinese culture and underscore the responsibility borne by humanity today.

Revel in the majestic beauty of Monarch Migration‘s kaleidoscope of butterflies. Movement created by Open Arms Dance Project’s diverse dancers helps teach, partly through American Sign Language, how to support habitat for dwindling monarch butterfly populations. This budget was informed by a collaboration with a City of Boise, Idaho biologist and librarian as part of the Boise Mayor’s Monarch Pledge.

A dance film celebrating solidarity in protest and the strength of a group in revolt.

Based on Wang Changling’s frontier poem “From the Army,” the film tells the story of war during the prosperous Tang Dynasty in China. Torches illuminate the depths of the cave, revealing ancient cave paintings that vividly depict the alternation of prosperity and war, recording the lives of early humans. When prosperity collides with war, countless small families are torn apart. At the end of the film, a white image symbolizes civilization, though it is cyclical, the club of life is reborn from destruction. So, what exactly has war brought to the world? It has prompted people to think.

Set against the panoramic backdrop of Salt Lake City, Barefoot Boy offers a cathartic exploration of art, identity, and resilience. As we are introduced to Bill Evans, a trailblazing choreographer, the film immediately transports us to an era and locale where being LGBT led nowhere good. Born in 1940s Lehi, Utah — an ultra-conservative farming outpost of Salt Lake City — Bill’s early years were marred by feelings of isolation and ostracism. But, his passion for dance became an escape, a form of self-expression, and a source of financial independence from his poverty-stricken family. From serving in the U.S. Army in Kentucky (where he sustained a nearly career-ending ankle injury) all the way to dancing with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City, Bill went on to found his own company, The Bill Evans Dance Company — which became the most-booked dance company in America. Bill’s winding path eventually led him back to Utah, where he became an integral part of the young, innovative Repertory Dance Theatre. Underneath all of the acclaim and success, Bill grappled with abandonment, insecurity, and a sense of worthlessness. He constantly fought to reconcile his queer identity with the prevailing Mormon faith of his community — he felt that he needed to suppress his true self simply to survive. He hid who he was — married a woman, had a kid — all before truly feeling empowered to embrace his queer identity. Now, at 82, Bill returns to Salt Lake City for his most challenging performance yet: a career-defining retrospective with the Repertory Dance Theatre, the same company that launched his choreographic career. Aiming to bridge generational divides, he endeavors to teach his time-capsule choreography to a new generation of dancers. But times have changed, and haunting echoes of Bill’s past threaten its success. Can he pull off the biggest performance of his life and inspire a new generation of modern dance, or will the pressures put an end to his illustrious career?

Two star dancers in New York City Ballet, Sara Mearns and Sterling Hyltin, have been paired in an experimental program with 2 “downtown” experimental choreographers, virtuosic Jodi Melnick and former Merce Cunningham dancer, Rashaun Mitchell. Outside of ballet, Sara and Sterling have had no exposure to experimental dance apart from seeing one Cunningham work. They’ve met very sporadically over the course of months because of NYCB schedules and now have very little time to put together a performance. Started almost ten years ago, this project presented an amazing opportunity to document 4 incredible dancers, their process and struggles as they attempted to bring together their talents to create a performance. One choreographer and one ballet dancer resistant to the project grows as their deadline looms. Unexpectedly at the end of the process, a lasting and evolving set of relationships that have grown and produced – and continues to produce – several works among them.