VCU Dance on Camera 2016

(Photo: From SHIFT by Rachel Lincoln and Amelia Randolph)

Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Dance & Choreography kicks off its 2016-2017 season with the Dance on Camera film screening, Monday, September 26, 2016 at 8:00 pm at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street. Tickets are $8/$5 students, available via showclix.com or at the door. This year's screening was curated through the American Dance Festival's Movies By Movers Institutional Partnership program by film festival director Cara Hagan, and coordinated by VCU Dance professor Martha Curtis. 

Movies By Movers is an annual festival dedicated to the celebration of the conversation between the body and the camera. It showcases collaboration between the ephemeral art of live movement and the perpetual nature of film. Students, emerging artists, seasoned professionals, even those who would not consider themselves “artists,” but have great ideas, find room on the festival’s screens to share their craft. The VCU Dance screening includes five films:

Normal Day - Directed by Ani Xhuma
In this short film we are looking at the life of White, a young man who comes back from work, frustrated from his everyday life keeps commenting on everything that is happening to him. When he enters the house we meet his 3 colors or personalities that are always there to visualize his thoughts, feelings but also the external inputs that he experiences and receives. As the movie proceeds we get to see more of white’s everyday life and his concerns about himself and life around him.

SHIFT - By Rachel Lincoln and Amelia Randolph
SHIFT is a short mountain dance film featuring Bay Area vertical dance company BANDALOOP as they journey across the Sierra. Using climbing technology to access back-country sites including a 2900 foot dance wall, BANDALOOP challenges the boundaries of site-specific performance, re-imagining what dance can be and where it can take place. Lead by founder and artistic director Amelia Rudolph, the company of eight dancers hike from Yosemite Valley over the crest of the Sierra supported by a technical team of riggers. Dances are staged and captured throughout the journey on multiple terrains, including steep cliff faces, on slabs of granite, and in the spray of a waterfall. Both virtuosic and human, SHIFT invites viewers into the incredible endeavor of bringing dance to the wilderness. As the performers find grace in the midst of high altitude effort, their artistry highlights the grandeur of the mountains and transports viewers into exhilarating, playful, and visually stunning BANDALOOP choreography.

Klasse - Directed by Malia Bruker Klasse
Klasse tracks back to the winter of 1938 in Jewish Hamburg at the height of WWII in a classroom kept just as it was during the war. The chairs, desks, chalkboards and solid walls are reminders of the haunting fixity of place against the trace of memories left as records of a tortuous time. The intimate cast of German middle school students and guest artists bring to life letters written between young classmates as they left one by one on the Kindertransport, reimagining the courageous spirit of children with uncertain futures, both then and now.

In Passing - Directed by Andrea Schermoly
Technology and social media often gives a sense of being more connected to our community than ever. But are we really? In Passing is a short dance film that explores the loneliness that results from this false sense of connection, the pace of our overstimulated interactions, the illicit affairs that seem so easy in our modern world, the struggle with one's perceived identity. No one is immune to the hurt of isolation and betrayal. American painter Edward Hopper's use of bold color and weighted environments in his paintings suggest this sense of loneliness, and serve as inspiration for the aesthetic of the film. In Passing is directed choreographed by South African choreographer and former Netherlands Dance Theater dancer Andrea Schermoly with cinematography by Zack Bennett and Kevin Schlanser, and a new score by Mikael Karlsson.

Platform 13 - By Camiel Zwart
Platform 13 tells the tragicomic story of a Japanese railway conductor. With his equally strong as graceful movements he keeps the biggest crowds under control. But than he ends up in his biggest nightmare: a strange new world, in which he and his signals prove unnecessary.

Dance on Camera is the first event in VCU Dance’s 2016-2017 performance season. The presenting program of VCU Dance is committed to building and engaging dance audiences in the University and Richmond communities while providing opportunities for artists to present and create work.

Recognized by professional dancers and choreographers as “a place where things are happening,” Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography offers a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for careers in dance.

To view our Grace Street Theater's 20th Anniversary and 2016-2017 Season, please visit: http://arts.vcu.edu/gracestreet/