Dance Films Online

19 - 28.05.2023

ALMOST UNINHABITED

Portugal, 2022, 10’50”
Direction and choreography: Daniel Matos, You breathe out, I breathe in.

Now forever. ALMOST UNINHABITED it is a video-performance based on the global dehydration that we witness daily, a desertification of the map that spreads almost like an irreversible and invisible plague at the moment. At the same time, how the landscape becomes parallel to the place of the body, how the body is also an arid place devoid of stability due to the loss of tone and the basic functionality that keeps us alive: breathing.

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It is the proposal for the encounter of a desert between these two bodies that are inhaled and exhaled consecutively, in the urgency of taking the last breath of the other for the survival of the sight, to continue with the permanence of the observation in what disappears and does not return.
A duet for two humans is conceived in a fluid relationship between body, gender and desire, privileging action and how one loses one’s body as one loses the world.
An analysis of the current desertification process that we are experiencing, focusing in the south of Portugal.

Tutti al Mare

Italy, 2022, 5’20”
Direction: Luca Di Bartolo, Choreography: Stefano Camba, On a beautiful sunny day Stefano drives to reach the beach.

While he is driving, something happens when he changes the piece of music.
His journey, this time mental, changes destination.
A tribute to dance and to the many abandoned monuments of Italian seaside architecture.

Glofish

United Kingdom, 2022, 4’50”
Direction: Sam Amos, Choreography: Sam Amos, James Olivo.

GloFish are fish that have been genetically modified by scientists into fancier, more colourful versions of themselves by using genes snatched from other organisms.

Épicentre

France, 2021, 8’27”
Direction: Anne Nguyen, Greg Kozo, Choreography: Anne Nguyen.

Through dance, the symbolism of the body and the stereotypes associated with bodies, Anne Nguyen invites the onlooker to question the concept of cultural appropriation.
“Épicentre. A film that ‘queries the influence that large architectural complexes have over human and social behaviour’. And celebrates the 60th anniversary of résidence Le Parc by the architect Fernand Pouillon. In order to highlight the monumental and timeless aspects of his developments, I decided to have the dancers wear Native American headdresses. Yes, like the ones you often see in westerns. Well, actually, my frame of reference is Michael Jackson’s Black or White. (…)” – Anne Nguyen

SISYPHUS ROOM

Greece, 2022, 2′
Direction: Nikos Elias Chrisikakis, Choreography: Marina Kladi.

The dancer Marina Kladi makes a choreography/comment in a dystopian archives room. The claustrophobic scenery is just a place to avoid and escape from.

PETA – The dancing turban

India, 2022, 2’17”
Direction and Choreography: Varsha Raviprakasha

We become what we wear in our Heart and Mind! Let’s choose to wear a turban of Happiness, Joy and Compassion! Let’s try to have lighter and happy moments in life to make life memorable to ourselves!
PETA – The Dancing Turban is a short, comedy dance film which is executed in the Indian Classical Dance form, named Bharathanatyam.
We have expressed how one can get a magical turban of Happiness through Dance!
We are hoping to get a smile when you watch this video!

Just Me Here

Germany, 2022, 4’1”,
Direction and Choreography: Amelia Seth.

An idea conceived during a strange two years of global pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines, when our houses and apartments suddenly became our whole world.
Someone might live alone, be alone, but that doesn’t mean they are lonely. A home can be four walls, a roof and floor, but it can also be whatever your imagination can make it.
Endless possibilities, endless adventures…

A quiet thriller

Germany, 2021, 9’22”
Direction and Choreography: Alessandra La Bella.

Why do we choose not to follow our instincts when we find ourselves in strange situations?
How much responsibility do we carry in the fulfilling of our destiny?
There is a place where human will and destiny meet and collide – pulled like a tight thread it stretches over our perception and understanding of time.
Human curiosity and animalistic dance together in a slow dense rhythm where naivety plays a silent but essential role.

Porcelain White: The Conversation

Germany and Sri Lanka, 2020, 28’23”
Artistic Direction, Concept; Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Venuri Perera, Film Direction: Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke.

Choreographers Venuri Perera and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, born several oceans apart in Jamaica and Sri Lanka, both former colonies of Britain, find that they have in common a ‘whitened’ inheritance. They were both brought up in the English-speaking middle class, which maintains certain practices adopted from the former colonial masters, that protect their social status. Conversing across continents, they probe their complicity. In this film, they unravel the complexities and limits of their inherited privilege as they inhabit neocolonial spaces.

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Zwoisy Mears-Clarke is a choreographer of the encounter. Zwoisy uses the potential of dance and storytelling to suspend forms of oppression such as neo-colonialism, sexism and ableism, in order to enable encounters that might otherwise seem unreachable. Currently, Zwoisy lives in Rösrath.

Venuri Perera is a choreographer and performance artist from Colombo. Her work deals with violent nationalism, patriarchy, border politics, and power dynamics of gazes. She is interested in the power of vulnerability as well as possible the preconditions for empathy.

Artistic Direction, Concept, Text, Performance: Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Venuri Perera; Film Direction, Film Editing: Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke; Cinematography Germany: Florence Freitag; Cinematography Sri Lanka: Jonathan Wijayaratne Ryan Wijayaratne; Sound: Isuru Kumarasinghe; Film Editing: Ryan Wijayaratne; Translation: Melmun Bajarchuu; German Sign Language: Katharina Rerich. Thanks to: Sunila Galappatti, Sara Mikolai.

A production by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Venuri Perera, coproduced by Festival Theaterformen and tanzhaus nrw, funded by the international coproduction fund of Goethe Institute.