ABOUT CREATEART’S DANCE FILM NIGHTS
Our Dance Film Nights were launched in 2021 in response to the influx of dance films brought about by the pandemic and necessity for spaces to share art and gather safely. Each event features screenings of recent dance films following by a Q&A with thier makers. The goal of our Dance Film Nights is to provide artists with a platform to share their work, open up dialogue between artists and audiences, encourage cross disciplinary collaborative relationships, and bring uplifting art to audiences in Brooklyn
Our 2024 program will continue at much loved venue Millennium Film Workshop, and CreateART and gust curated events, Historical Dance Film Screenings and creative mixer events. Stay tuned for application and programming information to follow.
2023 DANCE FILMS
See below for a list of films screened during our 2023 series.
6 - Kelly Tsai (2 mins 30 sec)
A moving meditation created to honor the lives and grieve the deaths of the six women slain at a series of massage parlors in Atlanta, GA on March 16, 2021, amid the rise of pandemic-era anti-Asian violence. Created by Kelly Tsai (direction, editing, choreography, performance, music, styling)
!blac - Yoko Murakami and Fernando Molina (2mins 42 sec)
!blac in an international collaboration between NY-based movement artist Yoko Murakami and Buenos Aires-based audiovisual artist Fernando Molina. The piece was inspired by a poem by E. E. Cummings, which took a minimalist and deconstructed approach to text. The poem acts as a bridge between the dancing and the audiovisual design, creating an abstract visual dialogue between two artists working together from a distance. Movement by Yoko Murakami Visual Art and Music by Fernando Molina.
'a sigh of origin - Hivewild (40 mins)
a sigh of origin' is a dance film situated within an aging psyche. As the newest work from Hivewild and director/choreographer Katherine Maxwell, 'a sigh of origin' invokes multi-dimensional experiences of identity and perspective throughout a lifetime. Director & Choreographer: Katherine Maxwell.
Accumulation - Megan Chu (13 mins 30 sec)
Accumulation follows a new mother as she strives to balance family life while staying engaged with her passion for dance during the pandemic. Production and Choreography by Megan Chu.
Chiron in Leo - j. bouey (24 mins 33 sec)
his is the tale of Chiron, a dancer whose bout with depression and anxiety summons them back to their childhood wounds to remember a lesson about survival. Chiron in Leo’s tale is inspired by the Greek myth and astrological significations of Chiron, the wounded healer. Artistic Direction J. Bouey Writer J. Bouey Choreographer J. Bouey Director Natalie Tsui.
'Frame - Michelle Thompson Ulerich (3 mins 15 sec)
Frame' is a piece that looks to uncover the stories held in our bodies. The waves that come when a person reflects on their ancestors' stories, their own story, and the parts that are to be written. Michelle Thompson Ulerich worked with dancer Faith Joy Mondesire, in the summer of 2020 over Zoom to unlock these stories in the movement vocabulary. Michelle has always been inspired by Faith's abilities as a mover and as a writer. Michelle brought on film artist, Alice Chacon, to frame this piece in particular ways to pull the viewer into the story. Working with a new composition by Joshua Piper they all set out to Riverside Park and filmed in the summer of 2020. 'Frame' was awarded special recognition by the Boulder Ballet Film Festival in 2021 and also shown at the Mignolo International Screendance Festival in 2022. Choreography + Concept- Michelle Thompson Ulerich.
Moon Journey - Veleda Roehl and Orion Gordon (1 min 57 sec)
PURPLE is a multi-project universe developed by SLMDances that illuminates the power of “deep sisterhood for social change” through storytelling and movement. This sisterhood is how we thrive: we invest in one another, we honor and celebrate each other's brilliance, and we hold ourselves accountable to experiencing radical joy. This film responds to the questions, ”What does PURPLE smell like? What does PURPLE feel like?” – while soaking in a steaming tub full of lavender. The viewer gazes upon the tub through a constellation of lavender flowers in a secret garden. Directed By: Orion Gordon and Veleda Roehl.
Morning Time X GHOST - Alison Clancy (3 mins 2 sec)
Supernatural and hypnotic, Morning Time X GHOST combines the creativity of musician and creative director Alison Clancy, film director Max Louis Miller, and dancer Albert Esquilin Jr. aka GHOST. Known for his signature step, “The Ghostwalk,” GHOST is a legendary Bruk Up (broken form) dancer and teacher. Bruk Up is a style which draws on Jamaican dancehall and hip-hop forms but is also used as a practice to heal broken bodies and spirits. After a childhood accident, GHOST spent many years wearing a leg brace, but used dancing to rehabilitate himself and develop a unique vocabulary of movement textures. The haunting sound of Alison's song “Morning Time” is embodied by GHOST's fluid yet precise movement, featuring his own stylistic creation called “possession.” Dancer - Albert Esquilin Jr aka GHOST Creative Director / Music / Lighting Design - Alison Clancy Director - Max Louis Miller.
MUTED LOWS - Cameron McKinney & Cayla Mae Simpson (8 mins 31 sec)
MUTED LOWS reflects on the sudden lack of conversation and physical interactions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The work uses contemporary floorwork to lament the loss of feeling “socially exhausted” and to attempt to fight against the sensation of isolation that hangs over our everyday lives. Choreography by Cameron McKinney Filmed and Edited by Cayla Mae Simpson.
Once We Were Strangers - Kyle Livesy (8 mins 19 sec)
A film of connection and cycles. Directed by Kyle Livesy, dancers Jake Tribus, Taylor Graham, Jordyn Santiago.
Screendance - Ruby Dietz (10 mins 47 sec)
“Screendance” uses appropriated archival footage to examine the cinematic conventions found across decades of dance filmmaking. Moving parts and working bodies are intertwined as this dance film explores the timeless, transcendent duet between the camera and the dancer. Directed, edited, and produced by Ruby Dietz.
SOI - Nicole von Arx (4 mins 52 sec)
First inspired by the fictional novel "The Great Fear in the Mountains" by Swiss author Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, this short film is an amuse-bouche to NVA & Guests' next live dance performance. The film retraces the journey of 4 protagonists wandering in the middle of the Swiss Alps. They seek to connect with each other while totally cut off from the rest of the world. Director | Choreographer Nicole von Arx.
SOLE - Irina Khokhlova (6 mins 27 sec)
Short Dance Film exploring themes of individual autonomy, coexistence within a group, celebration of individuality within a group. Writer, director, editor Irina Khokhlova.
STILL - Akira Uchida (5 mins 20 sec)
To translate the mood of the Abstract Expressionists into movement draws parallels with contemporary dance, a theme explored by director and choreographer Akira Uchida in dance short, STILL. Shot across the nine galleries of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District, STILL channels expressive forms through dance, against the backdrop of one of the world’s most intact public collections of any major artist. Director / Choreographer Akira Uchida.
Studies: Obliteration（临摹：湮没) - Anto Astudillo (8 mins 42 sec)
Studies: Obliteration is the latest iteration of Future Host’s Studies dance cycle. This film explores the idea of qi and its bodily expression. Qi could be interpreted as breath, force, air, or an opaque, fluid system of knowledge and communication. The work captures qi and its ubiquitous and cryptic quality by attending to prelinguistic and nonverbal communications in sound, movement, and image. Responding to Audrey Chen and Doron Sadja’s sound piece AB cut 7, which is performed with a synthesizer and extended vocal techniques, the choreographic movements evoke gestural, skeletal, and muscular tensions around the torso, belly, and throat. With contractions and expansions in breathing, the dancer negotiates the interior and the exteriority, embodiment and transcendence, remembrance and forgetting through structured improvisation. The specificity of 16mm film marks movements as cyclical, analogous to the replenishment and exhaustion of breath, the waxing and waning of energy. The film beckons to an eclipsed time/space that is nearly imperceptible. Informed by research into the phenomena and practice of Chinese Qigong, the Studies dance cycle reenacts a historical photograph from 1980s Beijing through choreography. The film beckons to an eclipsed time/space that is nearly imperceptible.
The Lines In Between - Georgia Usborne and Julia Discenza (11 mins 8 sec)
Struggling with writer's block, a woman moves through surreal worlds to discover the ebbs and flows of creativity. Directed & Choreographed by Georgia Usborne, based on the poems of Paul Rabinowitz
To Be Near You - Ali Kenner Brodsky (10 mins 41 sec)
to be near you., a dance film, recalls memories and embodies emotion, and is based on a live duet between Ali Kenner Brodsky and Jenna Pollack. to be near you. honors the memory of those that we have lost, collapses distance by energizing the spaces between, and demonstrates how people can find connection through physical separation. Choreographer & Director: Ali Kenner Brodsky Performers: Ali Kenner Brodsky & Jenna Pollack.
Together, One Time - Casey Brooks (2 mins 30 sec)
NYC’s Banji Twerk Team dances to a remix of Marlena Shaw's "Woman of the Ghetto" in a seamless one-take performance. Inspired by the Womanist theory put forth by Alice Walker, our film aims to unite every woman with the feminist movement at the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression. We aspire to honor all the women who strive for inclusion and equality - starting with the Black woman. The violence directed at Asian women in the latest act of domestic terrorism in the US has broken our hearts and motivated us to respond, together with one voice. Now is the time to stand up. It is everyone vs. racists. #BlackLivesMatter #StopAsianHate. Creative Director Banji Twerk Team, Soraya Lundy, Film Director Casey Brooks.
Topia - Jessie Lee Thorne (15 mins)
Topia investigates the complexity of emotions, specifically exploring individuals’ different manifestations of darkness – numbness, dissociation, depression, mania. The work examines the necessity of vulnerability, community, holding each other in pain and joy, and the effects that can have on the individual as well as those we let in. Directed by: Jessie Lee Thorne and Justin Thorne Choreographed by: Jessie Lee Thorne.
Vamos fazer de conta…("Let's pretend...") - Bernardo Gaspirini (9 mins 8 sec)
Based on the work of director Lars Von Trier, known for his uncomfortable cinema and the book “women must cry… Or unite against war” by writer Virginia Wolf, “Vamos fazer de conta…” was a provocation for young artists to delve into their deepest discomforts, creating a situation of reflection, and through the body to bring such experiences to the sidelines. Everything is together, bodies acting simultaneously with each other, bodies dialoguing for the whole. An invitation to highlight individuality and strengthen the idea of a collective. Director Bernardo Gasparini, General Director and Choreographer Elton de Souza.
