Austin McCormick wins DFA’s 2007 Susan Braun Award/Young Choreographers Initiative Born in Santa Barbara and dancing since he was five, choreographer/dancer Austin McCormick writes, “I plan to develop and build upon a piece I began researching and creating while I was a student at the Juilliard School and the Conservatory of Baroque Dance. The piece is an exploration of Baroque patterns and vocabulary in conjunction with contemporary movement, contrasting formality and emotionally passionate abandon.” “I am fascinated by the Baroque period and its decadent ornamentation but more so in the underbelly of the period. My piece creates a world that is based on the social structure of a Court. The characters are each driven by different motivations and desires, however, must subscribe to a particular way of behaving in public. Choreographically, we see the group execute traditionally Baroque patterns and dances, however, throughout this ritual, we see glimpses of who each character really is as shown through a contemporary perspective. The work explores who we allow ourselves to be seen as in public and asks whether that persona is in conflict with who we really are at our core.” “Adapting this piece to film will open so many exciting possibilities. This medium will allow me to show the period floor patterns from different visual perspectives and illustrate the emotional implications of these patterns, their meaning. The Baroque form has so much inherent subtlety due to its time in history; film allows the viewer to be closer to the action, seeing every layered glance and relationship. I want the viewer to at times be at the vantage point of the King seeing an elaborate ceremony unfold for his pleasure, and at times be in the center of the movement as if they are a dancer fulfilling their spatial duty, a cog in the wheel. Film allows an audience to see the whole picture while at the same time revealing a character’s most private moments.” “I plan to work with filmmaker Phillip Buiser who brings his experience as a professional actor and graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse to the collaboration.” The video submitted by Austin demonstrates strong choreography, excellent dancers and costumes, and his still (see inside cover) for the suggested adaptation is astonishingly handsome, indicating a clear aesthetic and awareness of how to achieve depth and power within a frame. The second prize was split between New York University graduate Ashley Browne and Juilliard School graduate Belinda McGuire who is currently dancing with Doug Varone. Ashley Browne’s stage choreography is a natural choice to adapt for the screen and Belinda McGuire articulated her ideas well and showed a talent for research and the thorough preparation necessary to excel in the arena of dance on camera. Along with her detailed texts, see above a photo Belinda included in her application for Furore, a duet for one body or a solo danced with its reflection. Belinda writes, “These photographs help convey the atmosphere, effect of near/far/incomplete/disillusioned perspective, effect of fabricated order, pattern and symmetry, breakdown of what seems absolute/certain/untouchable, sense of fragility/decay/reclaim of nature and the steadfast resistance of the inevitable. I am struck by the precise, strong symmetrical, patterned, repetitive forms seen in the architecture of churches, historic buildings. Even more beautiful is the image of this strength and fortitude being overcome by the elements and time.” The third prize goes to the Berkeley Carroll School, a high school in Brooklyn that submitted a project through dance teacher Dalienne J. Majors. DFA will offer a free class in dance on camera in the fall to the students of Ms. Majors at Berkeley Carroll. A team of mentors has stepped forward to offer their support and advice for all phases of the production. For more details, visit dancefilms.org. Your support is welcome. Please send your check earmarked for Young Choreographers Initiative payable to Dance Films Association. If you have questions/suggestions, e-mail info@dancefilms.org. CINEDANS celebrates its 5th anniversary by Janine Dijkmeijer This year Cinedans celebrates its 5th anniversary with over 25 premieres, and proudly presents its debut co-produced dance film SHAKE OFF, by Hans Beenhakker. Hans Beenhakker won the Jury Prize in DFA’s Dance on Camera Festival 2003 with WIPED, then started Cinedans with Janine Dijkmeijer. His short SHAKE OFF stars American dancer Prince, formerly of Lines Dance Company and currently with Hubbard Street Dance Company. Many of the companies (featured in Julidans) have also produced dance films or documentaries which will be screened during our festival. This and more has resulted in a much stronger co-operation between Cinedans and Julidans. Next to our special program of high-quality Dutch dancefilms like PORK from Gido Leytens, we will present also new work from Wim Vandekeybus (2007) HERE-AFTER. The documentary LES BALLET DE CI DE LA by Alain Platen and MOVEMENT (R)EVOLUTION AFRICA by Joan Frosch and Alla Kovgan. The Dutch filmmuseum will distribute both films by Thierry Knauff: SOLO and BARE-HANDED. With more than 230 entries in 2007, Cinedans has been firmly established in the international dance film world. In 2006, Cinedans sent a very successful film program across the world. The “Cinedans on Tour” program was shown at festivals in China, Russia and Poland. Also this year Cinedans will offer various film programs to Dutch theaters and festivals abroad. Cinedans Extra provides a platform for discussions between experts in the industry on various topics such as: how is dance archived, how do theatre and festival programmers observe a dance registration and how do they use DVDs to compile a program. In Cinedans Extra we zoom in on the developments of performing arts and the art of installation in particular, as dance is playing an increasingly prominent role. Contact: info@cinedans.nl. Hearts on Fire, Feet on Ice by Marcia B. Siegel The name of Savion Glover doesn’t appear in the top credits for HAPPY FEET. You can find him if you scroll down into the hundreds of artists and technicians who created the animated penguin movie. But Glover’s “voice,” aka the dancing abilities of Mumble the misfit Emperor penguin, is the crux of the story. His contribution is as essential to the movie’s success as that of the actors and singers who dubbed the spoken lines and songs. Glover’s exclusion from the featured ranks weirdly reflects the plot of the movie itself. When the cute little Mumble was dropped as an egg, his DNA got discombobulated, and he became tone-deaf. He can’t summon up the vocal of Heartsong by which an Emperor finds its mate and gains its place in the community. Mumble expresses himself by dancing. (He speaks in the voice of Elijah Wood.) He doesn’t know dancing is not an acceptable behavior, but it embarrasses his parents, exasperates his teachers, and earns him the disapproval of the Elders. Wandering off by himself, he falls through the ice, is chased by a leopard seal, and bounces to safety in the land of the Adelie penguins. These jovial birds aren’t as straitlaced as the Emperors. They adopt Mumble as a super-cool dude, and take him to Lovelace, the Rockhopper guru, to see if there’s an answer to Mumble’s persistent curiosity about why the penguins’ supply of fish is shrinking. Returning to Emperorland without an answer, Mumble teaches his best friend Gloria and the young penguins to dance. When he refuses to silence his happy feet, he’s banished by the superstitious Elders, who suspect his strange behavior might be causing the food shortage. He and the Adelie Amigos set off to find out why, really, the fish are disappearing. After that, the movie follows a classic fairy tale plot. The hero journeys through strange lands, makes new friends, overcomes obstacles, slays dragons, uncovers secrets, debunks myths, and eventually returns to save the kingdom and claim his true love. Mumble’s greatest asset along the way, besides a reckless courage and a beaky grin, is neither a sword nor a magic potion, but his gift for dancing. Thanks to Savion Glover and motion capture, HAPPY FEET is a terrific tap movie. Wearing a sensor-laden suit, Glover danced for multiple cameras; his movement information was transferred digitally to a pre-designed Mumble figure that “learned” the dance almost simultaneously on screen. Other dancers supplied the material for other characters, after learning to move like real penguins themselves. The group numbers were staged with intricate plotting by Kelley Abbey for seventeen dancers and the technological experts of director George Miller’s team. In some scenes the penguins celebrate in a chorus of thousands, carrying the Busby Berkeley spectacle to epic proportions. Dancing animals are no strangers to animated films; they go back even further than the talented hippos borrowed from stars of the Ballet Russe in the 1940 Disney masterpiece FANTASIA. On the surface HAPPY FEET looks like an adorable fairy tale, with its crinkly-eyed creatures who sweetly overcome ecological peril. But there’s a modern sensibility here that only begins with the filmmakers’ access to high-tech animation. For one thing, the characters are postmodern eclectics. Glover’s tap style in itself is a mix of historic references–Mumble shuffles on sprawl through a free-ranging rhythmic unpredictability, and when he teaches his moves to other penguins, they work it out in classic call and response dialogues. The finale includes riffs from Zulu, gumboot, Native American, and Samoan slap dancing, according to the movie’s extensive production notes. (See happyfeetmovie.com) The score covers pop music from funk to Latin, pop, rap, and gospel, with opera and movie adventure music thrown in, and somehow the animators have made the tanker-truck shapes of the penguins elastic enough to wiggle and sway like pop singers. There’s a generous streak of subversion in the characters played by Robin Williams, who does his manic thing as the Mexican-accented Ramon, leader of the Adelie Amigos, played by four well-known Latino comedians. Williams also plays the Rockhopper penguin Lovelace, a high-living bogus guru with the charisma of a black evangelical preacher and the Wizard of Oz combined. Williams sets a satirical tone for all the authority figures in the film: the windy Russian diva who can’t teach Mumble to sing, the Calvinistic leader of the penguins with the dowagers hump and the heavy Scots accent, the gangster Skua who’s humiliated in front of his predatory honchos when Mumble asks about the strange band on his leg. “Alien abduction,” blusters the bird, played by “Without a Trace” TV detective Anthony LaPaglia. The dialogue rolls along on a stream of improvisational zaniness that must have been influenced by Williams. The kindergarten teacher asks, “What’s the most important thing a penguin can learn?” and Mumble pipes up, “Don’t eat yellow snow?” HAPPY FEET is a very smart movie, not only because of its funny script. It skims nicely alongside today’s universal doom-plots: alien abduction, overfishing, trash disposal, eco-tourism, generational schism. The characters may look like Disney denizens but their souls belong to pop culture. Mumble’s mother Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) speaks in whispery Marilyn Monroe apologetics. Memphis, his father (Hugh Jackman) is a strong silent type who warns his peculiar offspring not to try “doing that” around the other penguins—he never can bring himself to utter the word “dance.” Gloria, Mumble’s girlfriend (Brittany Murphy), tries to deter him from his quixotic ways, she even tries to follow him, but she stays true to him while he’s gone, like the stalwart heroine of a World War II movie. Besides the direct contributions of singers like Prince and Gia, and the smart interpolation of iconic pop songs, the action is underlined with musical double entendres. As Mumble and the Amigos waddle away into exile, the soundtrack breaks into a lament worthy of a Kansas lawman heading off across the prairie to find the outlaws, with guitars and the Adelies singing “They’ll never forget him, the leader of the pack.” Ramon does a Cyrano de Bergerac, serenading Gloria while hiding behind Mumble’s back. The song is “My Way,” in Ramon’s hilarious Mex-Adelie accent, with additional reference to Debbie Reynolds dubbing for the vocally challenged Jean Hagen in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. Strains from operas blend into the symphonic mix–Wagnerian heroics as Mumble chases the factory ship that’s taking away the fish, Puccini as Mumble and Gloria glide through their last love duet. The Elders chant a malediction under the joyous dance of the penguin colony when Mumble returns to announce he’s contacted the aliens. the fish, HAPPY FEET is visually beautiful and astounding, even on DVD. When the adolescent Emperors, led by Mumble, take their first dip in the ocean, the Beach Boys are singing one of their surfing songs, and the delighted penguins streak through the water in formation like jets in an air show. Doing this exuberant water ballet, with Mumble and Gloria at the center of heartshaped formations, they’re also learning to catch fish. Members of the production crew went to Antarctica to film the landscape, which then became a panoramic moving canvas for the animated action. Just as human moves can be transposed onto graphically created animals by means of motion capture, these digitized landscapes can be magnified, zoomed in on, morphed into limitless frozen habitats. Mumble and the Amigos fall over a precipice and skateboard for miles down glacial chute-the-chutes, their blubbery bodies caroming off the walls. The dangers of Mumble’s journey are equally grand and graphic. There are mindboggling contrasts of scale—the monster jaws of the leopard seal and the killer whales, the inert chunks of discarded machinery, the oncoming ships that are too big to fit into the frame. Mumble looks no bigger than a bug, clinging to the massive net full of fish being hauled out of the water. The penguin pilgrims slog through a blizzard, they become barely visible specks making their way across immense crags and plateaus of ice. And then, after all this dramatic struggle, there’s the inert, claustrophobic animal park where Mumble wakes up after his capture. The story has a happy ending, of course. Mumble figures out how to entertain the visitors to the park; he becomes a dancing celebrity and gets released with a telemetry pack on his back to guide his new friends to the penguin colony. The fantasy ends up in the hands of the real world. In black and white TV news clips, bureaucrats and pundits argue about what the penguins are telling them. They decide to ban all fishing, and the penguins celebrate with the most massive dance of all. The notion that penguin-love will save the Antarctic from over-fishing is pretty farfetched, but the Australian production crew seems to believe there’s still hope that human intervention can save the planet. HAPPY FEET, the DVD, includes a library of twenty-eight highlights, two music videos, and a deleted scene in which the late animal-hunter Steve Irwin played a friendly albatross (Irwin dubbed the giant elephant seal in the final cut.) There’s a 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon about an owl chick with an irresistible urge to sing the one kind of music his music-teacher dad absolutely forbids, jazz. Besides all that, Savion Glover gives you a dance lesson— nothing to it, you just balance, toe-heel, shuffle, and after that it’s all music! Maria B. Siegel is the author of “Shapes of Change,” and “Howling Near Heaven” among other books, and the dance critic for The Phoenix The influence of Etienne Decroux on my work by cinematographer Jerry Pantzer Originally, I majored in Aeronautical engineering but became unfulfilled by its cold exactness and minute specialization. I was always interested in astronomy, spaceflight and flying which continues till this day. However, I found another form of search which had meaning for me. This occurred when I bought a still camera. I used to wander the streets and shoot all kinds of special moments in life that were spontaneous and yet, oddly choreographed, like a cosmic ballet that eternally changed. The drama of people, their forms in the environment and the poignant faces I photographed haunted me. I was convinced that I heard their actual thoughts as I moved amongst them… feeling invisible. Even the debris on deserted beaches formed landscapes of the mind, when shot up close. There was my love of space and my need to connect it to the flow of life. I was then drawn to acting. To work with the body first, seemed like an organic way to begin. When I first saw Etienne Decroux and his Company of Mime perform at the 92 Street Y, a space opened before me. He and his performers created a new way of seeing and commenting on life. I started to take lessons and was accepted into the company later on. I had no dance training and weak legs at the time. Through my mime work with Decroux, I developed a new sense of space, time, composition and the touching, bare essentials of human existence. Unlike dance, the stylized movements had gravity yet the spirit could soar. He demonstrated dynamo rhythm in which movements should surprise and never be predictable. Breath was an important role in this use of movement and timing. We did a piece called ” The Passage Of Man Across the Earth ” In it I played a Christ figure who is worshipped at first, then seen as a heretic and crucified by the masses only to become a symbol of worship again down through the ages. When Decroux decided to film the mime pieces, I took it upon myself to learn how to shoot them with a Bolex 16mm camera. I became seduced by this medium. From my training with Decroux, I was able to compose shots more dynamically and deal with negative space as an entity in itself. I also learned to edit in a more rhythmic way. I loved Orson Welles and Sergei Eisenstein, who work somewhat akin to Decroux in terms of creating stylized compositions. As I began to film dance and even documentaries, the effect of being with Decroux continued. I was able to frame and move the camera as a dance in itself. It was very organic for me. I literally loved the subjects being filmed and tried to get into their very souls. Again, my mind could hear their innermost thoughts as when I did photos on the streets. In some way, I felt that I had become a sort of ” film shaman ” and had become one with them in spirit, in some timeless, ancient way. Slow Dancing (world premiere) Motion Portraits of Dancers Multi-Channel Video Installation conceived and directed by David Michalek Tuesday, July 10 – Sunday, July 29, 9 pm-1 am New York State Theater facade, Josie Robertson Plaza, 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue , New York City FREE Each subject’s movement (approximately 5 seconds long) was shot on a specially constructed set using a high-speed, high-definition camera developed by the U.S. Defense Department, recording at 1,000 frames per second. The result is approximately 10 minutes of extreme slow motion—a motion portrait in which each dancer’s unique artistic expression and technique are revealed as never before. For the Plaza installation, the cycle begins as a full-length figure of a dancer appears on each of the three screens. Over the next 10 minutes, what at first appears to be a series of still photographs unfolds, gesture by barely-perceptible gesture, into an elaborate choreography. Viewers can choose to focus on one dancer’s complete performance or observe the interplay among the three screens. The extreme slow motion also allows the viewer to share privileged information about the complexity of the simplest gestures; catching details that would normally escape the naked eye. The subjects chosen for “Slow Dancing” are some of today’s foremost modern and classical dancers and choreographers, as well as recognized master interpreters of a range of traditional and contemporary dance forms. David Michalek is an artist who takes the concept and techniques of portraiture as the starting points for the creation of compelling works, on both a large and small-scale, in a range of mediums. His focus over the past ten years has been closely tied to his interest in relational aesthetics— using performative and interactive techniques—storytelling, dialogue, movement— relying on the input and responses of subjects, collaborators, and audience—as integral to both the creation and the experience of art. He has been drawn to projects that bring together diverse groups of people in settings ranging from galleries to public spaces, churches and community organizations to health-care facilities. His 14 Stations is one such project, created in collaboration with men and women transitioning out of homelessness, participating in the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. 14 Stations is modeled on the Christian devotional rite, “The Stations of the Cross,” with a different man or woman assuming the role of the Christ, figure in each. Blogger Doug Fox wrote, “I attended the “Slow Dancing” program at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Sunday night. This program was part of the museum’s “Works & Process” series that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at many different art forms. The Sunday night program was superb.” “David Michalek turned the captured images into a slow playing movie to jawdropping effect. Consider this: He shoots a dancer for just 5 seconds but the resulting video is 10 minutes in length. That means that we get to watch extraordinary dancers move in slow motion so we can experience and analyze movement in ways that were never previously possible. It sort of is a modern take on the question that Eadweard Muybridge asked in the 1880’s when he took pictures in quick succession of trotter horses to see if all four legs simultaneously left the ground – they do. But in this modern take, we get to ponder what really happens to a dancer’s muscles and body position as they perform a series of movements.” We get to see movement unfold in front of our eyes in time and space. And we see what was previously unseen in stunning minute detail, which to me makes it a jawdropping experience. Read more: http://greatdance.com/danceblog. Commissioned to create the images for the film in Peter Sellar’s “Kafka Fragments,” a staged setting of composer Gyorgy Kurtag’s work for soprano and violin, Michalek, then Artist-in-Residence at The Bridge, Inc., a day-home for people living with mental illness, drew on his activities with patients to create his compelling photographs. He also collaborated with Peter Sellars on St. François d’Assise, presented at the Salzburg Festival and Paris Opera. Born in San Francisco in 1967, David Michalek earned a B.A. in English Literature from U.C.L.A. and also studied filmmaking at NYU. In 1991, he began to work as a portrait artist for publications such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Interview, and Vogue. Michalek has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, from, among others, The Franklin Furnace, The Durfee Foundation, The California State Arts Council, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, Karen-Weiss Foundation, and the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County (commission grant toward the creation of Slow Dancing). Beginning in spring 2007, he became an artist-in-residence with The World Performance Project at Yale University. He is on the visiting faculty of the Yale Divinity School, where he lectures on religion and the arts. Featured dancers in “Slow Dancing”: Omayra Amaya Karole Armitage Alexandra Beller Trisha Brown Roxane Butterfly Dana Caspersen Shasta Cola/Glen Rumsey Patrick Corbin Herman Cornejo Wayan Dibia Gabriel “Kwikstep” Dionisio Megumi Eda Eiko and Koma Holley Farmer William Forsythe Anita “Rokafella” Garcia Maestre Joao Grande Isabelle Guerin Wu Hsing-Kuo Emine Mira Hunter Judith Jameson Jill Johnson Bill T. Jones Allegra Kent Youssouf Koumbassa Miroto Martinius Benny Ninja Lemi Ponafasio Alexei Ratmansky Desmond Richardson Bill Shannon (“Crutchmaster”) Ari Candrawati Saptanyana Putu Krisna Saptanyana Fang Yi Sheu Shantala Shivalingappa Dwana Smallwood Elizabeth Streb Janie Taylor Christopher “Lil C” Toler Jeremy Wade Shen Wei Wendy Whelan Nejla Yasemin Yatkin   Choreography Media Honors June 7, 2007, Directors Guild of America (DGA) Spotlight on agent Julie McDonald by Deirdre Towers Dance Camera West presented the first Choreography Media Honors, honoring the craft of choreography in media, with outstanding achievements in film, tv, commercials, music video, short film and documentaries. The DGA hosted this special evening. This event picks up where the ACA (“American Choreography Awards”) left off – an annual awards ceremony now on hiatus. The honorees are listed at www.dancecamerawest.org. The growth of opportunity for dancers and choreographers over the last 2 decades can be traced to pioneering choreographer/dancer agent Julie McDonald. When her own career as a dancer was cut short by injury, Julie broke new ground by becoming the first talent agent to exclusively represent dancers and choreographers. “As a dancer, I didn’t have a clue about how to go about having a career,” she says now. “There was nobody looking out for dancers in terms of wages, working conditions or credits.” I visited with her the week prior to the Choreography Media Honors in the Los Angeles office of McDonald/Selznick Associates, inc (www.mcdonaldselznick.com) which is just below the hillside sign spelling “HOLLYWOOD.” Originally trained as a modern dancer, Julie McDonald filled a void that she discovered in the early eighties – no one was representing dancers and choreographers. A passionate, warm and steady force, Julie has inspired other dance agencies to open up. But as the pioneer she is, she clearly has that gift that often separates the best – focus, consistency, and intensity. Julie can listen intently, respond candidly to questions and simultaneously continue her own train of thought, gather information from her co-workers and still remain calm. Julie greeted me with enthusiasm and then excused herself to take a phone call that brought the sad tidings that a pilot project by one of her choreographers was not being picked up. A network had rejected the dance proposal for one on photography. “Aren’t you bummed?” she asked her co-owner Tony Selznick, scion of the legendary Hollywood Selznick family. “That pilot was so tight. I am so disappointed. It is such a great project.” Pitching ideas is a new development for the agency. When Julie first set up her agency twenty years ago, lining up talent for music videos was all-consuming. Now with the music industry in turmoil, “75-65 percent of my business are booking the huge live shows in las Vegas, the celebrity tours, Cirque de Soleil.” Are there more commercials being choreographed than ever before? “No, Madison Avenue has always been savvy. They know that dance sells. But will the Clio Awards ever honor choreographers? No!.” Julie’s choreography agent Andrew Jacobs who concentrates on music videos and commercials added that there aren’t more commercials that are choreographed just more commercials with recognizable dance steps. As an example of her steadfast support for the community, Julie not only came to a fundraiser for the the documentary JACK COLE: JAZZ held at the house and garden of Julie Newmar, she also contributed handsomely to this project, a fiscally sponsored project of DFA co-produced by Annette Macdonald and TimeLine Films. “This project is so important. Dancers need to know their history.” From that event, she raced off to Book Soup for the book signing event of one of her most sought after director/choreographers, Jamie King, for his new book and DVD, “Rock your Body.” Jamie King has worked with Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Prince, Shakira, Ricky Martin, Pink, Rihanna and his longtime collaborator Madonna for whom he directed her 2006 “Confessions” tour and her music video “Sorry.”. Visit www.rockyourbodyprogram.com or www.jamiekingofficial.com for more information. Why is Jamie so successful? Julie said, “It’s personality. He gets along with everyone. Everyone wants to be around him. And he’s so cute.”   Tribeca Film Festival: PLANET B-BOY by Latika Young The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, held in New York City from April 25 through May 6, screened two new films that explore hip hop in its various contemporary, global forms. Benson Lee’s PLANET B-BOY documents some of the best breakdancing—or b-boy—crews from around the world as they compete for the “Battle of the Year,” dubbed by many as “The World Cup of B-Boy.” Stephanie Johnes’ film “Doubletime” opens a window onto the lesser-known world of Double Dutch jump-rope, a sport that has collided head on with hip hop, sparking a “fusion” competition category that seamlessly blends the precision and speed of rope skipping with the athleticism and acrobatics of breakdance. B-boying is truly planet-spanning these days, so Lee elects to confine his scope to just five of the hottest crews operating in the underground scenes of Japan, France, Germany, South Korea and the United States. The documentary follows these crews as they prepare for and win their regional competitions and finally as they battle it out in Braunschweig, Germany in front of ten thousand fans. During this ride, the audience is introduced to the dancers’ families and childhood hardships. Many grew up in poor conditions and have credited breaking as their means of escape and chance to transgress their confining socio-economic boundaries. One dancer uses breaking to deal with his father’s premature death. Racial tensions and preconceptions about breakdancing’s social worth are confronted head-on, but humorously. One very young French dancer, whose small stature makes him appear even younger, is interviewed at home with his mother. She admits to at first having been “skeptical” of breakdancing and her son’s acceptance by the local dance crew, as the other members were much older and “dark, dark, dark” whereas her son was “blond, blond, blond.” Director Benson Lee attests to the importance of these background stories, an often-missing facet of the history of breaking. Lee comments that b-boy movement is “based on feeling and story and those feelings and stories come out of experience and emotion.” Lee wants the audience to witness all the angst and joy that fuels this dance, so that “when [we] see them dance, it is a whole new way of seeing the dance.” Although Lee’s attempts to share insight into the lives of these amazing dancers is admirable, the scope of the film is so expansive it becomes difficult to relate to these dancer-players as individuals. They are all subsumed by the frenetic, hypnotizing power that is the marvel of the dancers’ movement and surroundings. Lee captures some of the most virtuosic breaking caught on film placed in some of the most awe-inspiring natural and manmade sights in the world. One Parisian scene filmed at dusk frames magnificent French-breaking antics in silhouette as the Eiffel Tower looms in the background. Scenes in Las Vegas juxtapose dancers in front of the unnatural contrivance that is a miniaturized, compressed New York skyline (The New York, New York Hotel and Casino) and the uber-natural setting of desert cliffs splashed in brilliant, stratified layers of umber, sienna and gold. Interestingly, breakdancing, so often associated with its urban history, actually looks quite comfortable in these new surroundings. Perhaps the most intriguing and politically-charged setting positions breakers on both sides of the line that divides North and South Korea. The battle becomes even more important for these dancers from South Korea, who only began to surface so prominently on the global scene within the past half decade. These young men will shortly be forced to serve their compulsory military service, during which time breakdancing is not allowed; this may be their last opportunity to claim a longanticipated international victory. PLANET B-BOY is well worth watching for this incredible footage, but its intended poignancy dissipates due to the sheer breadth of its focus. DOUBLETIME however, is most effective precisely for rooting its story through the eyes of only a few of the sport’s main practitioners. Johnes’ film documentstwo Southern jump roping teams, the Bouncing Bulldogs from Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Double Dutch Forces from Columbia, South Carolina —as they prepare for the annual Double Dutch Holiday Classic held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The motivating stories that inspire these jumpers and their coaches are more developed since additional screen time is devoted to more fully understanding each character. Antoine Cutner, for example, is a cheerleader, aspiring aesthetician and comedian, in addition to an expert rope skipper. Erica Zenn, eighth grader and national and international champion, is a very petite yet fierce competitor who gives a presentation about powerful women for her Bat Mitzvah. The coaches for both teams share their stories of getting involved in the sphere of rope skipping and their struggles in working in a world that has long been divided into separate jump rope organizations, the USA Jump Rope Organization and the American Double Dutch League, that have long been divided along racial lines. Just like PLANET B-BOY, DOUBLETIME inspires with jaw-dropping footage of amazing feats, but now they are all performed above, below and in between the rhythmic twirling of two arcing ropes. The winning teams in the “Fusion” category all rely heavily on moves drawn from breakdance and hip hop; just as in the b-boy circuit, Double Dutch has gone global as stellar groups have recently emerged from far-flung places like Japan and the Netherlands. Breakdance moves that would already read as highly impressive are rendered even more stupefying with the addition of the ropes, especially as seen performed by students still in their teens. The audience at the opening screening at Tribeca was delighted to see all the performers from the film in attendance, offering live demonstrations of their extraordinary skills. To watch the trailer for and clips from PLANET B-BOY, visit: http://www.planetbboy.com. For DOUBLETIME: http://dsc.discovery.com/promo/doubletime/?dcitc=w99-502-ah-1038 Latika Young just received her masters degree from Florida State University and is currently taking an intensive course in Serbian. The Importance of Place Dance/Screen, Innovative International Dance Films, May 22, 2007 by Charlotte Shoemaker Early on in my viewing process for this season’s Innovative International Dance Films program I knew I wanted to show Simona da Pozzo’s “i._” (France/Italy, 2005, 18 min.) and Karsten Liske’s AUGNABLIK (The Blink of an Eye)” (Germany, 2005, 16 min.) I also knew that I wanted to show one right after the other in the screening order. Both films are fascinating yet look very different —one is distinctly urban and matter of fact while the other is set in a sweeping landscape whose history and associations imply elves and myth. Both grow out of and are inextricably wedded to the environment they inhabit. Without their particular environments, they would each be another work all together, which is true for all the films in this program. The connection between place and dance physically shapes the movements in “i._”. (I believe this title is a graphic representation of the tape that plays such a key choreographic and visual role in this piece). The film begins in close up, almost abstract shots, of feet pushing off a wall, a dancer sliding himself across a rough floor like a measuring stick, closely cropped angular bodies turning and twisting. The editing and music emphasize the rapid movement of these almost abstract images. These movements constrict in a solo dance–created as much by editing as by the dancer’s movements– inside a very small, wet bathtub and expand as the two dancers begin to measure each other by comparison and with small hand gestures. They use tape to delineate the walls, floors and casement windows of the raw loft space they explore. They start gingerly, placing small bits of tape, then expand, unrolling long strips and pressing them down, ripping them up loudly and creating a new direction until this movement becomes a trio of tape and two dancers. As they explore the many physical ways of relating to the shapes they have created, their dance becomes a densely layered, full body, rolling hopscotch. As the range and complexity of their movements increases, the camera moves even faster, the surface of the floor sliding away, the dancers moving into and out of the frame. The dance space and their movements within it have become a stunning, rapidly moving three-dimensional black and white drawing. In AUGNABLIK (The Blink of an Eye)” the space, Iceland’s tundra, is so vast that a speeding car followed by a long trail of dust becomes an element of the choreography. This timeless space is the center of the film. The music, dance, and images that create the film all arise out of it and disappear back into it. They are ephemeral and they are part of something much bigger than themselves. We see the two gruff, colorful dancers in inter-cut bits of their solitary explorations. The framing often shows them dwarfed by the landscape or they are shown near the edges of the frame, just barely there. Small subtle, often quixotic, movements become dance and reveal volumes about their characters. Often when they do dance together, their movements don’t quite connect–as if there were a magnetic field pushing their energy apart, and when they do connect with brief gestures of tenderness and companionability, they drift off. The music reflects this motion, arising and dissipating, incorporating all manner of rumbling and squeaking. At intervals throughout the film she sings the breathless atonal song of a child in her own world. He makes faces. And at the end of this cranky fairytale I was left captivated, tingling and tender. Both of these films are highly original, uniquely and fully themselves. As a result they are fresh and surprising. They breathe life and create new spaces—the open ended arising and falling of “augnablik” and the measured turning within itself and outward expansion of “i._”. Each shot is framed with a painter’s eye. The sound and music in each film emphasizes and enriches what we see. Each film is strongly tactile and specific from ripping tape off a rough floor to stiletto heels sinking deeply into the tundra. Each creates a new vocabulary of what can be dance. Another film that grabbed my attention was Rachel Davies’ GOLD (UK, 2004, 10 min.) about young gymnasts training for the Olympics. This film moves like a short flash of a visual documentary between the particularity of these girls’ lives and their teen-age mannerisms, slowly building into crescendos of rapidly edited shots of their extraordinary speed and precision as they jump, spin, land and take off again. And then it settles back into the world of bus stops and television from which they sprang. Stephanie Klemm’s two one-minute films (Switzerland, 2001) give us brief, delightfully irreverent, glimpses into very different worlds. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE is a succinct, desperate dance that vividly relives the prosaic but intense experience of waiting too long for the rest room. ANITRA’S MIRROR is a whimsical dance created from the pairing of two simple toys—a tiny magnetic toy ballerina and a small rectangular magnetic mirror. Apparently giant fingers move the mirror, which alters the magnetized space between them to move the dancer. The contrast of the grandly dramatic music of the Peer Gynt Suite generates a delightful silliness in this otherwise simple exploration. I began with GOLD since it was a perfect transition from our everyday world into the magic of dance film. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, more of the real world transformed into dance, followed. Then I showed “augnablik” followed by “i_“ each of which led us into their very unique marriages of place, dance and film. ANITRA’S MIRROR then provided a light-hearted touch. Since these films push (and expand) the “limits” of what can be considered to be dance, I wanted one with flat out gorgeous dancing and found it in Clara van Gool’s UP AT DOWN (The Netherlands, 2003, 29 min.) made from Suzy Blok’s LOOKING UP AT DOWN The subtleties of the dance in the other films erupt here into full-blown bravura energy. This piece was originally a dance made for stage, reset in a new location and adapted for the screen. The film begins with a lifeboat that turns out to be a toy floating within a real, water filled lifeboat that sits inside an anchors and chains warehouse on the Rotterdam waterfront. The play between the inside and the outside continues as the dance sweeps through the cavernous dusky space of the warehouse and the dancers move out into the sun, wind and rain while those elements enter inside, sometimes dramatically. The dance itself did not grow out of this space yet in its adaptation to this environment it fully uses its surroundings, creating a variety of vantage points that couldn’t have been possible on stage. Even the choreography reflects the location when the dancers make loops of chain with their hands, arms and legs, and other dancers move through them. At one point a dancer pulling against a long rope dances with its tension, winding and unwinding herself within it. This dance was inspired by turning points in people’s lives. The four dancers come together in many configurations of emotion: combative, tender, explosive, mournful, supportive and joyful. Their movements are lush, acrobatic, surprising, boneless, sliding, coming together, reconfiguring, stretching, and leaping. While we see a seamless flow of multiple points of view from the camera movement through the complexity of this very rich choreography, and emotional, visual and auditory terrain, the overall movement of the piece is one of swirling through the vast space. The dancing camera creates this along with the choreography; at one point the dancer is relatively still and it is the camera that supplies the grandly sweeping movement. This whirling motion is also emphasized by the music that soars in a wild ride of accordion, strings and energy. At the end, after moving into the brilliant light outside, one dancer turns in place as our point of view, the camera, slowly climbs high enough that her spinning skirt becomes a small rounded spot on the ground below and the music fades out. Charlotte Shoemaker curates Dance/Screen in San Francisco. e-mail her at charshoes@sbcglobal.net