Every January in New York, the Dance on Camera Festival packs audiences into the Walter Reade Theatre to see a worldwide offering of the best dance videos and films: narrative and experimental, shorts and features, documentaries and pure dance. Thanks to Professor Tim Glenn, FSU’s dance technologist, the Dance on Camera Touring Festival is making its first stop in Tallahassee.

A member of the Dance Films Association (which sponsors the festival with the Film Society of Lincoln Center), Glenn attends the New York screenings. When he heard of the traveling version, he knew “it would be an exceptional opportunity for students and faculty to be exposed to what’s being done in this exciting genre. I was amazed at the international range, from Iceland to Nigeria.”

The aesthetic range of the 12 films is wide too. “I was picky about my selections, wanting both high technical and aesthetic quality.” Glenn says. “In some dance video, movement is not the major ingredient. I wanted films with movement integrity. These works will help dance students who are creating work for screen and will also illustrate the possibilities in narrative and non-narrative film.”

Program I - Oct. 22 @ 7:30PM

Program II - Oct. 23 @ 7:30PM

HORSES NEVER LIE (Canada)
Choreographer/Dancer: Caroline Richardson
Director: Kathi Prosser
Producer: Bravo!FACT
This sensual film delves into the mythic concept of metamorphosis. Issues of birth, development, and renewal are ignited through movement.

FLY (New Zealand)
Director/Choreographer: Shana McCullagh
Producer: Margaret Slater
Composer: David Lang
Loosely based on the story of Daedalus and Icarus, FLY is a tension-filled short about a deaf boy's desire to soar and his father's struggle, through the language of movement, to set him free.

MEASURE (USA)
Choreographer: Dayna Hanson
Director: Gaelen Hanson
The Seattle-based dance theater company 33 Fainting Spells’ first foray from stage to screen is Measure, a 7-minute experimental work in the tradition of the abstract dance film. Shot in 16mm color, the film takes place exclusively within the decaying walls of a constricted, 4-foot-wide corridor in an unrestored turn-of-the-century boarding school on Bainbridge Island, on the West Coast of the United States. As light spills into the corridor from the doorways of unseen rooms, a relationship emerges between a man and a woman (33 Fainting Spells' Dayna Hanson and John Dixon), revealed as much through their eyes as through the expressive timing of their rhythmically intricate steps.

URGE (Denmark)
Director/Choreographer: Ulrik Wivel
Dancers: Amy Watson, Mads Blangstrup, Marylise Tanvet, Edhem Jesenkovic
Composer: Tobias Wilner; Producer: Vibeke Vogel
Producer: Barok
Four dancers, two classical and two modern dancers, share one room

BURST (Iceland)
Choreographer: Katrin Hall
Director: Reynir Lyngdal
Producers: Anna Dis Olafsdottir, Jon Thor Hannesson
Composer: Bix, Daniel Agust
A couple fights until a water pipe comes to the rescue with its timely explosion.

BLACK SPRING (Nigeria/France)
Choreographer: Heddy Maalen
Director: Benoit Dervaux; Companie Ivoire
Producer: "Heure d'ete
Sponsors: Arte, Sinsa Finn, Derives
Distributor: Ideale Audience Int'l
This stunning film challenges Western notions of African bodies in movement. The dance is interspersed with scenes of contemporary life in Africa which serve to heighten awareness of the social and political sensitivities inherent in modern African dance.

Dance Films Association’s annual Dance On Camera Festival co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center

FSU Dance