Film Categories: dance

  • Moving Pictures Quartet

    A new DVD compilation of four short dance films produced by the Moving Pictures Dancefilm Art Society. ICARUS Dir. Curtis Wehrfritz, 6 min., 2001 Shot on two hand-cranked cameras, this film captures segments from “Wind,” part of a performance cycle about the four elements choreographed by Bill James. Inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus, who fell from grace after flying too close to the sun, this work contrast post-industrial waste with stunning images of artifice. Performed by Yvonne Ng, Shannon Cooney and Robert Glumbek, with music by Tom Third. GARDEN OF STONE Dir. Gregory Nixon, 5 min. 1999 Kathak…

  • Byron Chief-Moon: Grey Horse Rider

    Byron Chief-Moon is a multi-talented actor, stuntman, dancer, choreographer, playwright, founder of the Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association, and member of the Blackfoot Confederacy, member of the Blood Band. Through his art and his life, Chief-Moon’s story is one of cultural survival. Themes of his dance creations begin with his people’s traditional stories, his attachment with the land and his community, as well as the inner conflict he faces in existing within the Aboriginal culture and the wider community. He is ensuring the preservation of his native language through its incorporation in his work. As well, he’s firm in his…

  • Dance with Me

    The impressionist, lyrical style of the film is a departure for Nicolaou, who describes this film as “one half documentary and one half fictional narrative.” The film is a collage visually and thematically, though the narration serves to anchor the piece with a freestyle kind of story telling. Nicolaou drew upon experiences in her own life when creating the film. She incorporates footage from her family’s home movies of the 60s and 70s. “A haunting portrayal of the yearning for intimacy between parent and child.” – Henry Mietkiewicz, Toronto Star Life always appears to be more joyous in old home…

  • Butte

    Poetic and sensual, “Butte” unfolds over the course of a day, marking the progression of time at four key points – sunrise, mid-day, late afternoon, and sundown. Filmed on the Blood Reserve in the plains and ancestral grounds of Southern Alberta, the camera instinctively accentuates dancer-choreographer Byron Chief-Moon’s deep connection to the land. The film captures images of nature and the connectiveness with the land – undulating waves of wild grass, the slow passage of clouds, pastoral, woodland thicket, and streams. The body as landscape is the central image; where the flesh, bone and muscle become synonymous with the land.

  • Dance, The

    “With an irresistible humour, Rimmer speculates in “The Dance” on the nature of the film loop. We see a (1920’s) couple whirling around a dance floor at a dizzying pace… Even after the technical building block of the film is evident, the vertiginous effect remains… Uncanny in its ability to evoke complexity of responses from a simplicity of means.” – Art and Cinema, #2

  • Pulsions

    “Pulsions” explores the fluidity of space and time through its emphasis on pulsing movement. “Pulsions” is a companion piece to “fugitive l(i)ght” (2005). The two films grew out of one project that aimed to explore the double ellipse/figure “8” that is created through the movements of living bodies, namely humans, birds and insects, underwater and in the air. Music by Colin Clark. Dance (choreography and performance) by Lucie Mongrain. Selected screenings: Alucine Festival, Toronto, ON, 2007; Nuit Blanche, Toronto, ON, 2007; WNDX Festival, Winnipeg Cinematheque, Winnipeg, MB, 2007; Warsaw Media Festival, Poland, 2007

  • Oh, You Pretty Things

    Told in a collage of sound and vision, “Oh you pretty things” chronicles the enchantment and disintegration of a relationship built on very different and questionable drives. Recounted through the experiences of two nameless characters in metropolitan New York, the minimal dialogue, ambient moods, engaging narration and sweeping music that make up “Oh, you pretty things” allow the observer to interpret the unique synergy of couples and the varying perception each person has to a shared situation. The ensuing emotional complexity ultimately asks the question: What is love?

  • Moments in Motion (Mouvement Perpetuel)

    Seven short profiles of Canadian choreographers, each powerful voices from the new generation: Natasha Bakht from Ottawa; Byron Chief-Moon from Lethbridge; Day Helesic from Vancouver; Hinda Essadiqi and Audrey Lehouillier, both from Montreal; Malgorzata Nowacka from Toronto; and Sarah Stoker from St. John’s. From diverse cultures and backgrounds, these artists are all cultivating new ground, questioning the established codes and redefining the language of choreography. None shy from taking risks. Zeroing in on the creative process, the film presents their distinct worlds through cinéma-vérité and dance-for-camera sequences. By infiltrating their communities, studios and homes, the camera seizes the essence of…

  • Rubb My Chubb

    If you’re a Torontonian, and hip to the fat revolution, you can’t have missed the recent explosion of the Fat Femme Mafia. Call them what you want. Large and in charge. Larger than life. These women have been hitting the city with the strong words of politics of size. During the inception of the Mafia, we could only gossip with possibilities. Soon there were rumours, whispers, and boisterous claims about the phenomenal event that was to be Chubb Rubb: A Fat Cabaret. This short documentary follows the Fat Femme Mafia, their fat co-conspirators and allies in the days leading up…

  • Soft Place to Fall, A

    Caustic, tender and poignant, “a soft place to fall” is a dance film that investigates a couple’s shifting relationship. This dance tells the passionate story of a man and a woman and the humour and peril of becoming vulnerable to each other as they move through states of obsession and determination.