VCU Dance Live

Film Screening: Selections from New York Dance on Camera Festival

Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Dance & Choreography presents Dance on Camera, a screening of four short dance films selected from the New York Dance Films Association, Dance on Camera Festival, 2009. These films, never before screened in Richmond, will be presented at VCU's Grace Street Theatre on Tuesday, October 13 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $5 and are available at the door. For more information, call the Grace Street Theatre Box Office at (804) 828-2020.

Curated by VCU Dance Professor Martha Curtis, Dance on Camera promises an exciting glimpse into the innovative genre of video dance. According to Prof. Curtis, "This promises to be an exciting screening with films from several corners of the globe. We start with a disorienting play on space and gravity, move to an unexpected accident, then to the enigmatic, finishing with a richly moving biography told with the hybrid artfrom of videodance."

The screening will feature PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL, a film directed by David Fariás, Carla Schillagi and Maria Fernanda Vallejos of Argentina and nominated for a Jury Prize at the 2009 Dance on Camera Film Festival. Dancers explore a narrow passageway to create and elegant, abstract and lively piece of pure movement and form.

Directed by Didzis Eglitis of Latvia, VEITING NORBA describes an accidental encounter on a sidewalk that spins a group waiting for the garbage collector into a chain reaction likely to provoke a smile.

MYSTERIES OF NATURE, was the winner of the Dance Films Association 2009 Jury Prize. Created by Dahci Ma, South Korea, in 2008, the film is simply described as "torn into bits and gone with the wind."

Audience Favorite at the 2009 Dance on Camera Film Festival, NORA was directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, choreographed by Nora Chipaumire, with a soundscore by Thomas Mapfumo, and produced by Joan Frosch (USA, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, UK, respectively). Nora is a dense and swiftly moving poem of sound and image that tells the story of a dancer growing up in Zimbabwe.

Dance on Camera is the second event of the VCU Dance 2009-2010 Season, a thrilling year of concerts, film screenings, master classes and more. The VCU Dance 2009-2010 Season is made possible in part by funding graciously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the Virginia Commission for the Arts; the New England Foundation for the Arts, and VCUarts.

VCU Dance presents the Salon on Tuesday, October 27th at 8 p.m. in the VCU Dance Center, Studio 203 located at 10 North Brunswick Street. The informal showing of new student works in a range of disciplines will be facilitated by VCU Dance Professor Martha Curtis, who will invite audience members to react to the work presented and share observations with the artists. Says Curtis, "Our goal is to give students an opportunity to show works or works-in-progress with feedback sessions designed to encourage dialogue and further investigation of creative ideas."

Admission is free and open to the public. For additional information, contact VCU Dance at 804-828-1711.

VCU Dance will present CALM, the Fall 2009 Senior Project Dance Concert on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 19, 20, and 21 at 8:00 pm at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street. Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for students with a valid VCU I.D. and can be reserved beginning November 9 by calling the Grace Street Theater box office at (804)-828-2020.

Four senior dance majors explore the many meanings of "calm" in four diverse works. In each piece the choreographers find through spatial, tactile, internal, musical, social, or forced relationships the meaning of calm within their work. Some create an environment that displays their definition of calm: by either using a stressful and restricted space in which the characters must find a sense of calm; or by illustrating the calming interaction that occurs between the Tuscan landscape and classic Italian architecture. While others find calm in the familiar: whether that be familiarity of touch and sensation; or of memory and nostalgia, and the reminiscence of an idealistic era. Through this process of kinesthetic exploration these four women have constantly been growing and evolving through their works. By finding acceptance of their quickly changing lives and relishing in the comfort of the unknown, the presentation of these works serves as a stepping stone into these artists long careers to come.

Through the serendipitous encounter, Between Floors, Corrine Bates investigates one of humanity's immense fears: getting stuck in an elevator. Through her percussive and gestural movement, five strangers are forced to endure emotions they never dreamed of experiencing. Lasting relationships are molded; sometimes the most unexpected situations yield the most remarkable outcomes.

Alyssa Crump's Technicolor Romance blends movement from Modern Dance, Ballet, and Jazz to bring the era of 1950's Hollywood to the stage. This colorful escapade takes her 12 dancers back in time with the energetic rises and falls of big band swing. Taking inspiration from legends such as Gene Kelly, Anne Miller, and Frank Sinatra, Crump explores through loose and lively movement the unquestionable connection between music and movement, and the relationships that people experience while dancing.

In scutura degli spazi, Lauren Stafford investigates different ways of utilizing space through the inspiration of classic Italian architecture. Stafford's eleven dancers construct and reconstruct kinetic shapes that form throughout the space, while light creates shadows and pathways highlighting and accenting the three dimensional space.

In A Day Apart, Melodie Fais pulls from the primitive and intellectual sides of the psyche to reveal the inner workings of the familiar sensation of being touched. Through circular spatial relationships and dynamics nine individual souls hold, brush, caress, tap, and manipulate each other through space eliciting a broad spectrum of emotions.

CALM is the fourth event of the VCU Dance 2009-2010 Season, a thrilling year of concerts, film screenings, master classes and more. The VCU Dance 2009-2010 Season is made possible in part by funding graciously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the Virginia Commission for the Arts; the New England Foundation for the Arts, and VCUarts.