Friday, December 12, 2008

The Dance Film Project @ Intermedia Arts

Friday, December 12 and Saturday, December 13 at 7pm.
John Koch, filmmaker and enterprising owner of Cinema Revolution, has pulled together 13 local filmmakers and choreographers to present seven short films that will be shown this Friday and Saturday at Intermedia Arts. The Dance Film Project is just one of the unique ways that John chose to celebrate Cinema Revolution's fifth anniversary, showing his commitment to the local arts at a very grassroots level. Dreamy local sound magician's To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie will perform after the show Saturday.

Following are descriptions of the shorts from Cinema Revolution's website:

"Reverb" by director Katie Ritchey and filmmaker Garrett Tiedemann. Four women search the echoes of space and time. While compelled forward through programmed behaviors and a maintenance of group dynamics an underlying curiosity keeps them tracing peripheries of unknown origin.

"4-Frame Dance Project" by choreographer Justin Jones and filmmaker Kevin Obsatz. Obsatz runs four digital cameras simultaneously, each facing in toward the center of a square to capture a single choreography and displayed on the screen simultaneously in a four-square layout. The dance relates to the placement of the cameras, resulting in disorienting and surprising effects produced by this particular method of capturing and displaying choreography. The technique is repeated by 8 different dancers each giving their unique take on the perspective. Featuring performances by Justin Jones, Anna Shogren, Laurie Van Wieren, Mad King Thomas (Theresa Madaus, Tara King, Monica Thomas), Charles Campbell, Kristin Van Loon, Elliott Durko-Lynch and Megan Mayer.

"Coarse Confluence" by choreographer Megan Mayer and filmmaker Kevin Obsatz. Megan Mayer, a dance artist/choreographer and photographer based in Minneapolis, is the solo performer in this site-based dance film, which is the result of an interest in the intersection between movement and film. Megan performs in an array of natural landscapes, her dance interacting with and reflecting upon her surroundings.

"throne/thrown" conceptualized by choreographer/director Vanessa Voskuil and filmmaker John Koch. Taking its impetus from W.B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," "throne/thrown" explores the search for the position in one's life by which to conduct one's authority over it. Directed and conceived by Vanessa Voskuil (2006 Sage Award for Outstanding Design) and John Koch (Cinema Revolution store owner and filmmaker), "throne/thrown" strives to create a frenetic, visually compelling, and cinematically moving experience.

"Alongside Sympathetic Neurons" by choreographer Mandy Herrick and filmmaker Dustin Nelson. Herrick and Nelson explore site-based dance, investigating particular locations and how they can be perceived differently through changing the typical movement, behavior, time, and perspective of each site. The exploration and movement inspired by the body-site, within the context of a geographical-site, illustrates a parallel in both body and place.

"Cuddle" by choreographer/filmmaker Erica Pinigis. Stop-motion is used to show the dance of two lovers lying together, suspended in black space and bound by a single bed sheet, as their bodies intertwine, merging, coming apart and back again, exploring the movement and gesture of romantic love.

"I'll be on the dock in a minute" choreographed and conceived by Mad King Thomas and filmmaker Katinka Galanos. Sally Rousse, co-founder of James Sewell Ballet, stars in this semi-biographical dance, filled with both truths and fictions about her life. Sally tells a story about being run over by a truck when she was a small girl, featuring peculiar and fantastic interview footage mixed with live-action reenactments/re-interpretations of the events. The following themes are informing the work: the scale of human bodies (over time and between individuals), rewriting history, investigating the function of truth vs. fiction, and the dynamics of tangential conversations.

For more information go to Cinema Revolution.

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