 |
|
|
DANCE MOViES Commission Archive
The DANCE MOViES Commission supports the creation of new works for the screen which vary widely in content and form, yet are united by the fact that the image on the screen was crafted by, or in collaboration with, a choreographer or movement-based artist. The works supported combine the possibilities and range of the moving image in all its technological facets with the physicality and movement-based modes of dance.
Examples of works supported by the commission include films that are narrative-driven, using the conventions of filmic story-telling; some may be abstract works which mine the inherent sympathies between the time-based, visual aspects of both dance and film; some may not even feature “dance” as is generally defined, but contain a powerful sense of how movement unfurls in time and how we create meaning from the dance of images; some may take advantage of tools such as computer processing, motion capture, simulation, animation, and image processing; and some may extend the confines of the single screen to multiple screens or projections.
The DANCE MOViES Commission is supported by the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts.
» back to DMC home
Spring Cleaning, US, 10 minutes
Director/Visual Artist/Performer: Pooh Kaye
Music/Sound: John Kilgore
A spirited animation from the pioneer of stop motion in dance film, "aged but still agile"; a solo celebrating the explosion of spring in the countryside.
Marching Banned, US, 10 minutes
Director: Danièle Wilmouth
Choreographer: Asimina Chremos
Sound Designer/Band Leader: Mark Messing
Band: Mucca Pazza
A film following the mayhem created by a 30-member punk marching band as it navigates through the quotidian happenings in the city of Chicago. The collaborators subvert the forms of the traditional marching band, designing intricate choreography for the camera and people, maintaining the spontaneity of "actions for joy."
A Circus of One, US, 15 minute looping video installation
Director/Visual Artist/Performer: Alison Crocetta
Music/Sound: Jason Treuting
A video installation by a visual artist who uses the 16mm camera as a witness to performative actions while referencing the history of cinema. She constructs an evocative habitat for the solo character of a clown, successfully crossing the disciplines of sculpture, performance, and film.
Fauna, Chile, 20 minutes
Director/Visual Artist: Paulo Fernández
Choreographer/Dancer: Rodrigo Chaverini
Visual Artist: Antonio Becerro
Music/Sound: Tomas González
The relationship between artifice and nature becomes the central focus for a video by an artist team from Chile. Using an elaborate layering of design, costume, movement, environment, and set, they create a fantastical world that provokes a sense of anxiety and fascination.
Stats: Selected from 71 applications, of which 23 were short-listed, the four funded projects represent the fourth round of awards given out through the EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. In this year's pool, 60 of initial proposals came from the US,
three from Canada, four from Argentina, two from Brazil, one from Chile, and one from Mexico. See the June 2010 press release for the full list of short-listed projects.
2009-2010
Anatomy of Melancholy, (Mexico) 6.5 minutes. Director: Nuria Fragoso. Two contrasting spaces — one light and open, the other constrained and dark — form the built environment for dancers moving against expectation. Visual metaphors about spaces and intentions.
Hoop, (Canada) 4 minutes. Director: Marites Carino, Choreographer/Performer: Rebecca Halls, Composer: Anthony Tan, D.O.P.: Donald Robitaille (Canada).
A woman floats in a black void, swinging through shafts of light, keeping in perpetual motion an incandescent and familiar circular childhood toy.
MO-SO, (USA), 10 minutes - looping video installation Director: Kasumi, Composer: Fang Man, Dancer: Chan U Hong. A three-channel video installation for film samples and dancer. Fragmentary and symbolically charged images serve as a basis for improvisation by the dancer. The footage of the dancer is then fed back into the polyphonic narrative, musical and choreographic structure.
Quince Missing, USA, 16 minutes
Director/Choreographer: Rajendra Serber. In this exploration of urban isolation, three men trace their solitary paths through empty streets at night. When the strangers try to pass each other by, they become locked in anonymous antagonism.
The closer one gets, the less one sees, Brazil, 10 minutes
Videomaker: Valeria Valenzuela, Choreographer: Lilyen Vass, Production: Aura Films. Intervention in the everyday lives of three jugglers/beggars, who get together at the traffic lights on a street crossing in the city of Rio de Janeiro, transforms the objective action of their juggling into the abstract vocabulary of contemporary dance.
Stats: Selected from 69 applications, of which 28 were short-listed, the five funded projects represent the third round of awards given out through the EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission.
In this year’s pool, 51 of initial proposals came from the US, seven from Canada, four from Argentina, three from Brazil, and two from Mexico. See the 2009-2010 winners press release for the shortlisted projects.
2008-2009
Body/traces by digital media artist Sophie Kahn and choreographer Lisa Parra (US). A single-channel video installation reanimating 3D laser scans of the body in motion, resulting in a ghostly imperfect trace of the dancer's movement at human-scale.
Looking Forward – Man and Woman directed by Roberta Marques, choreographed and performed by Michael Schumacher and Liat Waysbort (Brazil/Holland). The third film in a trilogy experimenting with the reversing of movement and time in video and dance, creating mind-binding illusions in partnering while on a Sunday walk on the beach.
Eyes Nose Mouth choreographed and conceived by Noémie Lafrance, directed by Patrick Daughters (USA). A dance film in which one take follows a single figure, streaming through fast-changing and surreal environments, ceaselessly swept forward in the flux of urban time.
Sunscreen Serenade directed and choreographed by Kriota Willberg, sound by Carmen Borgia, illustration/animation by R. Sikoryak (US). A global warming-themed Depression-era musical spectacle populated by scantily costumed hand puppets.
Stats: Selected from over 100 applications, of which 28 were short-listed, the four funded projects represent the second round of awards given out through the EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission.
In this year’s pool, 80% of initial proposals came from the US, 7% from Canada, 9% from Argentina, 3% from Brazil, 1% from Mexico.
2007-2008
An international panel met in May 2007 to select the four winning projects for the . With awards ranging from $7,000 to $42,000, these works represent the first commissions given out through this new program. They will be premiered in the fall of 2008 at EMPAC's opening.
Kino-Eye directed by Joby Emmons and Elena Demyanenko (USA) — A work combining the aesthetic of video surveillance in post-Soviet Russia and the filmed movements of a contemporary Russian dancer. (8 minutes)
Nora directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, choreographed by Nora Chipaumire, soundscore by Thomas Mapfumo, produced by Joan Frosch (USA/Zimbabwe/Mozambique/UK) in association with Portland Green Cultural Projects, and Center for World Arts, University of Florida— a dense and swiftly moving poem of sound and image that tells the story of a dancer growing up in Zimbabwe (35 minutes)
PH Propiedad Horizontal created by David Farias, Carla Schillagi and Maria Fernanda Vallejos (Argentina) — a group of dancers use a narrow passageway, typical for Argentinean urban housing, to create an elegant, abstract, and lively piece of pure movement and form. (5-7 minutes)
Soldier (photo from Men) directed/choreographed by Victoria Marks, directed by Margaret Williams (USA/UK) — a dance film featuring US veterans who have recently returned from Iraq. (10-12 minutes)
Stats: 163 applications were submitted – 82% from the US, 10% from Canada, 4% from Argentina, with artists also applying from Uruguay, Paraguay, France and the UK.
» back to DMC
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
