MOTION PICTURES ‘09

7th Annual Mini-Fest of Dance on Film & Video
Curated by Gretjen Clausing, Film Curator and Independent Media Activist and Terry Fox, PDP Executive Director

Monday & Tuesday, June 29 & 30, 2009
at The Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut Street, Phila PA

Now in its 7th year MOTION PICTURES has become a unique mini-festival that explores how film and video serve as natural collaborative medium for dance, highlighting the power of image and motion in both. The festival features experimental and innovative shorts, documentaries, “moc”umentaries and animations. There have been documentaries about Pina Bausch, Maya Deren, Carmen Amaya, Geoffrey Holder and Carmen DeLavallade Mark Morris and the Paris Opera Ballet along with imaginative ground breaking work by Pooh Kaye, Hilary Harris and Lloyd Newson among many others. PDP partners with the Dance Film Association and some of the films from Dance On Camera ’09 at Lincoln Center will be featured in Motion Pictures ’09.

$10/show $15/2 shows
DanceUSA/Philadelphia Pass Discount Available
Info/Reservations: 215.546.2552

SCHEDULE

Monday, June 29

Two screenings highlight the remarkable life and work of Antonio Gades

6 PM Antonio Gades, The Ethics of Dancing (2007/Spain/56 min)
Juan Cano Arecha, Director

Antonio Gades (1936-2004) brought an intense, seductive glamour to the dance theater of Spain. One of the finest Flamenco performers of the 20th century, Gades concentrated his performance on spare gestures. This documentary pieces together his professional dancing life as his own voice threads the story. His fertile collaboration with the feature film director Carlos Saura produced the landmark film trilogy: “Bodes de Sangre”, “Carmen”, and Amore Brujo”. In this documentary, we see Gades with Alicia Alonso in “Ad libitum”, in “Giselle”, “El amor brujo” in the “Iberian Suite” by Albeniz.

7:30 PM Bodes de Sangre (Blood Wedding)(1981/Spain/67 min)
Carlos Saura, Director

Carlos Saura began what would become his Flamenco Trilogy with this depiction of a single dress rehearsal for choreographer Antonio Gades’ adaptation of poet/playwright Federico García Lorca’s tale of passionate revenge.

One of Spanish cinema’s great auteurs, Carlos Saura brought international audiences closer to the art of his country’s dance than any other filmmaker, before or since. Starring and choreographed by legendary dancer Antonio Gades, the film features thrilling physicality and electrifying cinematography and editing— “a paean to bodies in motion as well as to cinema itself.”

Tuesday, June 30

Two artists return to Africa – one to retrace her childhood home, one to immerse herself in an artistic home.

6 PM In Search of Mali Sadjo (2009/USA/24 min.)
Pamela A. Hooks, Director; Gabriel Bienczycki, Filmmaker

In 2008 Kulu Mele African Dance & Drum Ensemble went to Conakry, Guinea to choreograph a dance “Mali Sadjo: The Legend of the Hippopotamus” in collaboration with Guinean artists. Film Director Pamela A. Hooks captures the company’s artistic journey as Pew Fellow and the troupe’s Artistic Director, Dorothy Wilkie, seeks to enrich their creative and cultural connections.

Nora (2008/UK/35 min.)
Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, Directors

“Nora”, directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton is based on the life of Zimbabwean-born dancer Nora Chipaumire. Filmed on location in Southern Africa, “Nora” engages with concepts of self and memory, and the active process of remembering, using a language of dance. The traditional tools of filmmaking—lighting and landscape, pacing and movement—draw out story and character, and a searing performance by Chipaumire as herself, her mother, her father and other characters provides a strong emotional center. A self-exiled artist Nora Chipaumire is now based in New York. Her multimedia dance work, illuminates the struggles of human identity in an increasingly borderless world.

“…dream-like recollections and vivid hues produce a rich and deeply satisfying film.” – Brooklyn Rail

“this gorgeous dance-poem… has startling color, vigorous movements and gestures, and a deep understanding of the power of a face to transfix…exquisite details.” – Denver Post

7:30 PM The Annual SHORTS Show
Artists known and unknown, local and international focus on dance with humor, reverie, the everyday and the surreal.

Dance Like Your Old Man (2007/Australia/10min)
Gideon Obarzanek & Edwina Throsby

Six women imitate their dad’s dancing styles. Winner of Cinedans 2008.

Karahano (2008/South Africa/8.55min)
Jeannette Ginslow

A playful collaboration between three male dancers from Madagascar and South Africa is set in an industrial locale of downtown Johannesburg.

Two Kinds of Wind (2006/USA/7.15 min.)
Corrie Befort

Seattle dancer/choreographer Befort, who recently appeared in SCUBA’09 here, explores solo dancers moving with the wind in a subtle study of texture and mood.

She (2009/USA/3 min.)
Kathy Rose

An insectoid fantasy with a sound track by C. P. Roth, here re-interpreted on video from a live performance, with Rose’s signature of vivid colors and multiple rhythmic images.

If (2008/USA/4.38min)
Corrie Cowart

“If” explores the moment before action. It is an internal dance of contemplating and presaging future reverberations, featuring the text, choreography and performance of Pew Fellow Charles O. Anderson.

The Princess & The Vagicorn (2008/USA/4/12min)
Nick Cassway

Dancer/choreographers, Allison Lorenzen and Rebecca Patek have created a mildly erotic spoof on girls’ world of fairytales, ballet recitals and the “wilderness of adult (well really female) sexuality.”

Untitled (2009/ USA/6 min.)
Gabrielle Revlock

Car-men (2006/Netherlands/26 min.)
Jiri Kilyan & Boris Pavel Konen

The distinguished Dutch choreographer teamed up with a Czech director to present their version of the tale of that eternal temptress, Carmen. The black and white film, that does homage to classic early slapstick movies, is sited in an abandoned scrap heap of car parts.