Dances Made to Order

Marianne Kim is now hard at work creating her dance film inspired by the themes chosen by our audience: notice only the crooked lines and 1984 by George Orwell. Get your tickets for the digital premiere  of Edition 23 on May 1.

Why are you interested in making dance film?

Creating a dance film satisfies my long standing interest in cinema, installation art, design, and the performing arts. For me, making dance films is best described by Richard Wagner’s term gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art.

Tell us a little about your creative process…

I like to start by asking myself what is the dumbest thing I could do and then I do a lot of research.

Name a film that changed your life.

A Room With A View had me destroying my hair at the age of 15 with I-wanna-have-Helena Bonham Carter-hair perms. It was not pretty. The films of Hal Hartley were a big artistic influence when I was in college, but I would put Tarkovsky and Kurosawa in my top five for biggest influences.

Name a dance performance that changed your life. 

I saw Sankai Juku’s UNETSU – The Egg Stands out of Curiosity on VHS my second year of undergrad and it was life changing. I remember looking at their movement vocabulary and was convinced my body wanted to move like them. It was also the first time I saw an immersive stage environment (water filled stage, sculpture, exquisite lighting).

If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out with you, what would we do? 

It really depends, but museums/galleries are my usual go to places for visitors. However, if you’re 11 we would go bowling. If you’re 15 – 20 we would go to the movies. If you’re over 21 and under 70 we would go see a show and have a late dinner. If you’re over 70 we would go to the Korean spa and have an early dinner.

What is your favorite drink and where do you get it? 

Hendricks dry martini, up and with a twist, topped with a spritz of vermouth (from an atomizer)…..unless someone has a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon to share.

If you could live in another time period, which would it be?

2100 – 2200. I would like to see where technology has taken then human race in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.

Jeremy Moss is collaborating with Pamela Vail on a dance film for Edition 23 of  Dances Made. They  are hard at work on their film which will be inspired by the themes chosen by our audience: 1984 by George Orwell and notice only the crooked lines. Remember to get your tickets for the digital premiere on May 1.

Why are you interested in making dance film?

I think it is a rich site for ongoing exploration – how to connect moving bodies with moving frames. The best film work, in my opinion, rather explicitly about dance or not, deals with movement and duration. I am interested in making dance film because it lacks any veneer. The content is there – it can be strictly about movement and it doesn’t have to be hedged in by some story.

Tell us a little about your creative process…

I make what I want to see. I set clear limitations for myself and I work within that structure. The box must be constructed before you fill it with content.

 Name a film that changed your life…

Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1963). The “Sans Toi” sequence when Cleo changes from singing for her song writers to singing directly at the camera is the most exquisite piece of cinema in my opinion. It is formally complex, aggressively self-reflexive, yet deeply personal and emotional. It shows exactly what cinema can do.

Name a dance performance that changed your life…

If we are talking about “life changing” I have to say it is the Talley Beatty’s dance performance in Deren’s A Study in Choreography for Camera. As a film student who knew nothing about dance, it was my first experience with modern dance, and seeing how it connected to moving images was extremely illuminating for me at the time.

If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out with you, what would we do? 

We would sit in the dark and watch films all day. Then we would drink and talk into the night.

What is your favorite drink and where do you get it?

Stoudt’s American Pale Ale.

If you could live in another time period, which would it be?

1920s Paris (now a cliche thanks to Midnight in Paris!), but the cinema from that decade is the most exquisite – Soviet Montage, German Expressionism, Surrealism, French Impressionism … I would have loved to have been part of that.

What are some things you can’t live without?

My Bolex.

The filmmakers I have selected for this installment of Dances Made to Order make work that is challenging, meditative, and brave. I am excited to see where theses talented filmmakers will go next in stretching the boundaries of dance film.

Each of these artist have a unique quality to their work, Marianne M. Kim, is an artist and educator working in performance, public art, and multimedia installation. Her work has great complexity. I really enjoy the camera work of Jeremy Moss especially in his film Constructs, a poetic rendezvous on a wintry morn along a train track. And Gina Carli, who’s past work experimented with stop-motion animation, proves her to be new young talent with an eye towards the future. Coming from a background in theatrical distribution, I am trilled to see the opportunities this platform provides for filmmakers and dance films to get greater exposure.

Our artists are now hard at work creating their films based on the themes chosen by our audience: notice only the crooked lines and 1984 by George Orwell. Get your tickets for the digital premiere  of Edition 23 on May 1.

Liz Wolff has over 15 years of professional experience in the performing arts. After training with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company and the Paul Taylor Company as a scholarship student, She became a founding member of Cortez & Company [Contemporary Ballet], and later principal dancer with Verb Ballets, performing works by Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, and Heinz Poll.

After retiring from performing Liz began working in the film business, first in domestic distribution at The Weinstein Company, then Head of Theatrical Sales for Oscilloscope Laboratories. Making the move to the exhibitor’s side of the film distribution business, Liz worked as an assistant film buyer for The Film Group and came on board with DFA as curator for Dance on Camera last August.

A peek into the filmmaking process with Tracy Rector and danza family Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtli

Filmmaker Tracy Rector is creating an educational dance film in partnership with Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtli for Edition 22. Premieres exclusively on Dances Made on April 3. Remember to get your tickets

About the interview:  The responses shared in this interview are our collective thoughts and represent Tlaloktekuhtli as a group. While most interviews for this project are generally conducted with individual dancers and/or choreographers, we are a collective of Mexican/Chican@ families dedicated to Danza Azteca Chichimeca. As such, we hold a common understanding and relationship to Danza, which we hope is reflected in the words we share in this interview.

Why are you interested in making a dance film?

This film project will give us a new way of sharing Danza with Mexican/Chican@ communities. Our hope is to awaken the ancestral memory of our communities through Danza, education and art. In doing so, we hope to contribute in meaningful ways to strengthening community relationships, health and wellbeing.

If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out with you, what would we do?

We would like you to understand our intentions behind this film project and would therefore ask you to join our Danza family to witness our dance, drum, and song.

What is your favorite drink and where do you get it?

Water. Along with fire, wind and earth, water is part of the four sacred elements that create and sustain life. Water is integral to our Danza and ceremonies, it is present in our altar and many of our Danzas honor water in its various forms. On one level, our group’s name, Tlaloktekuhtli can be understood as the rain, or the liquor of the earth.

Name a film that changed your life:

Documentary films on Danza, Mexica cosmology and traditional ecological knowledge. Here are a few that are available to the public: El Es Dios and Guadalupe: A Living Image

Why do you dance?

Danza is part of our traditional ways that we as Mexican Chican@s inherited from our ancestors. Our spirituality and sense of self is connected to Danza. On the most basic level, Danza is a way for us to pray and reaffirm our relationship with the earth, all living beings and elements. Danza is also a form of resistance to the continual colonization of Native peoples, lands and cultures. Through Danza, our group specifically seeks to collaborate with Mexican Chican@ youth and families to promote health, education, the arts and social and environmental justice.

Tell us a little about your creative process…

Our creative process is facilitated by our relationship with the Creator. This makes our Danza spiritually-based instead of a performance or entertainment venture. Our Danza is an offering of a deeply intimate and sacred part of our culture.

About the image : We were asked to share a picture of our choreographer. Because Danza was created, preserved and given to us by our ancestors, we decided to include an image from our codices that captures how our ancestors engaged with Danza. In this way, we hope it is clear to the audience that were are not the choreographers of these Danzas, rather our responsibility is to care for and preserve these ways.

Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtli is a collective of Mexican/Chican@ families dedicated to preserving Nahuatl cosmology through Danza Azteca Chichimeca. We envision a community in which collective practice is the basis for cultural and spiritual revitalization. We seek to help establish healthy relationships between elders, children, parents and the earth by engaging families in Danza Azteca Chichimeca, ceremony, education, art and food cultivation.

Tracy Rector. Photo by Petter Cohen

Tracy Rector is one of the featured artists creating a dance film for Edition 22 of Dances Made curated by  filmmaker, Adam Sekuler. Her film will be inspired by the themes chosen by our audience: broken machine and dive,sharp,fly. Remember to get your tickets for the digital premiere on April 3

Why are you interested in making a dance film?

I started ballet at a young age and by the time I was 10 I saw myself becoming a full blown dancer. I just loved to move my body…until my instructor told me that I didn’t have the body of a real dancer and that I had no future in it! I fell into a deep depression, gave up eating and essentially my dream as well. Skip ahead to me as a young woman, and now I feel absolutely free when I’m dancing, whether in class, at clubs, festivals, and during celebrations. I’m beginning to embrace being brown, strong and vibrant.

With the opportunity to make my first dance film, I was immediately taken back to those feelings as a young, thick brown girl being told that I did not have the body of a dancer. In that case, what could I have to offer a dance film? Then I remembered how beautiful, grounded and resistant dance can be. And that’s when I asked the danza family Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtli to collaborate on this project with me and my crew. Working with them has allowed for me to bring together the deep soulful resistance and empowerment that dance can offer in the spirit of community activism. These dances are not for entertainment; they are a daily testament to the act of survival that many indigenous and brown people have had to experience as a result of colonialism and oppression. Making this dance film came at a time when I am beginning to realize that I can only be myself, and if I don’t share my passion and spirit I am only feeding into the broken system that my old dance teacher came from. This film is about resistance, art and the duality of the spirit.

If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out with you, what would we do?

Ha well I’m an inspired workaholic and a single mom. You would be spending 10 hours at work with me and then chasing our bird, cooking, cleaning and cuddling with us at home. I love my life though and think that it would make for a stimulating day for the most part.

What is your favorite drink and where do you get it?

I love love love horchata and I like getting it from the Mexican food trucks around town, but especially from Rancho Bravo down the street from work. Sweet!

Name a film that changed your life.

‘Round Midnight… In 4th grade my mom and dad separated and I stayed with my dad. Once a month my mom would pick me up and take me to a movie. As I look back, I realized that she took me to some powerful films. One of these incredible stories was ‘Round Midnight’ in 1986 at the Harvard Exit in Capitol Hil (that was back when they served Market Spice Tea for free). It is based on the real-life friendship between a Frenchman, Francis Paudras, and Bud Powell (played by Dexter Gordon). This movie made me realize that I was going to be an adult one day. Something about the pacing, the characters, the jazz and the story ignited my transition into young womanhood. It’s hard to explain. It’s a sexy moody drama and I was a teen francophile. I fantasized living in this world created in the film. Towards the end of high school, I used to sneak into a local jazz club downtown, listen to the musicians, order a glass of vin rouge and request the song ‘Round Midnight’ from the band leader Floyd Standaford. I felt so grown!

If you could live in another time period, which one would it be?

I’m a huge fan of the Harlem Renaissance and La Belle Époque. Life in these two cities seemed rich and expansive. Rules were broken, art was created, everyone danced and optimism seemed pervasive. This was also a time of velvet, glamour, indulgence, bohemian aesthetic and good food. I love that the word “ritzy” was invented during this time period too!

Tell us something surprising about yourself.

I’m 1/8 Jewish.

On set with Tracy Rector and danza family Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtli