I could really be quite happy just watching dance films for the rest of my life.
Certainly, viewing a great film is moving in a multitude of ways; but dance film is a thoroughgoing, highly satisfying and most beautiful medium. More on this later. Los Angeles is extremely fortunate to be the host to Dance Camera West or DCW, film festival. Annually, for more than two decades, Angelenos have the opportunity to dream, be inspired, and indeed experience as many emotions as with film, but with intensified joie de vivre.
Come every January, DCW showcases its commitment to exploring the possibilities for dance in the context of cinema in the City of Angels. DCW’s 22nd edition, which took place over four days, returned to Barnsdall Art Park’s historic Gallery Theatre. The festival included more than 40 films from 20 countries, chosen from 320 submissions — all making their International, United States, or Los Angeles premieres. Additionally, the 2024 edition included workshops, artist talks and receptions.
Executive artistic director Kelly Hargraves noted on opening night, DCW is the second oldest dance film fest in America and possibly the longest running female led film fest in L.A. to her knowledge. Further, the festival just received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for its Visibility Program, an emerging BIPOC choreographers program.
The festival’s premiere evening featured seven amazing international shorts programs, plus three films by guest of honor director, choreographer Javier de Frutos. (The Burning Building, Whoever You Are, The Sequestered Disc) followed by an interview and Q&A with de Frutos.
International Shorts
Short, OFFERING (Canada) brings together joyful convergence between the Migration Dance Film Project’s body percussion artists and emerging artists from dance (gigue, contemporary, street) and circus arts. Its choreographed procession resonates power in Montreal’s urban borough of Little Burgundy, amplifying a reimagined homescape in the era of mid-pandemic, chanting the mantra “We Rise.” Irrepressible, OFFERING’s diverse storytellers’ embody consciousness of individual and shared experiences in unison, tracing migratory patterns across the urban landscape.
Experimental short, Moth explores female desire in a darkened space of imagination using a single light source: a lantern. A man and woman’s unvoiced examination of sexual objectification, regret and loss trace the flux of whose feelings matter most in the act of coupling. Longing permeates Nicole Vaughan-Diaz’s rendition of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.
Flowing together and individually, the couple’s dance progresses imbued with intimate softness and solitary strength. The lantern amidst darkness quietly illuminates their passions and perseverance just below the surface.
Experimental Short, Branché. Through unique, female-driven circus and movement art, Branché traverses time and lush natural landscapes of Quebec in a poetic exploration of our potential to work in harmony with nature in the face of the rising conflicts and chaos of the climate crisis.
Three person high vertical formations rise like trees. Bodies branch among one another becoming root systems on the land. Performers jump, dance, catch one another — physically supporting and encouraging each other. Briefly, a few attempt to jostle and challenge each other, resulting in breathtaking falls before “waking up” to find one other, starting again. A reminder that the oneness of nature and humanity is undoubtedly worth preserving, not fighting over.
Experimental Short, ÉCHO (Canada). Cinematic shadows and light engulf this work by director, choreographer Édouard Lock featuring Rachele Buriassi, principal dancer of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, with an outstanding original score by James O’Callaghan. Buriassi, in perfect form — fitted in a modish black bodysuit detailed with horizontal inverted pleats and black tights — mesmerizes through the camera’s lens.
I will go out on a limb to say that ÉCHO encompasses the best of dance film. Considering point of view, this film captures what you cannot see as an audience member watching a live dance concert. In an interview with Lock on CKUA Canadian Radio, he discussed the marriage of dance and film. Lock explained the audience is typically stationary versus the point of view of a camera, such as in an extreme closeup — an emotional point of view. Audience’s are attracted to the camera’s ability to capture imagery from multiple angles. In dance film, “The audience virtually moves their seating to reflect their interest in what they’re seeing,” said Lock. “The camera is reflective of the way we see the world. The audience can gather extreme amounts of information and tie it into one holistic point of view.”
In ÉCHO, Buriassi performs solo in a vacant theater. In the opening frame, her image is reflected on the black mirror-like stage on which she lays. She performs intimately. It’s a puzzle at first to discern what the shadows projected on her exposed back and shoulders suggest; darkness, creativity? It’s no matter. Her precise, powerful forms fascinate. Buriassi’s exceptional isolated movements from her shoulders, torso, arms, hands and head to her facial expressions convey curiosity and coyness, seduction, and strength, a little flirtation, deep emotion and pure physical prowess.
Experimental Short, MEMO. A young couple reflects on their relationship four weeks after they broke up. Their dance is communicated, peacefully, through body language, music and sound, with their voices narrating. Filmed on a rugged coastline in three sections; Pretend, Receive and Reach, their youthful innocence reveals each one’s honesty, awareness and their yearning to grow and their acceptance.
Experimental Short, Anyone Who Knows. Choreographer, director Kate Harpootlian explores the depths of isolation and rage when faced with the quiet and indifferent disintegration of a relationship. In under seven minutes a woman roams a home (designed dissimilarly, marking time between mid-century modern furniture against what may be pre-WWII wallpaper) assuredly. Driven to dramatic gesticulation by the onslaught of her grief, she processes the ending of her marriage. She moves from room to room, recalling, looking for love, then finds detachment. She searches, weeps and finally rests, in bed. Her costume, a dramatic,1950s A-Line, deep green dress with precisely matching pumps, juxtaposed with her expressionless lover suggests that she yearns for a bygone era’s storied version of love.
Short, GREYHOUND. Two friends living in an abandoned bus station get an unexpected call. An out of the blue, fun romp/dance through a dilapidated bus station with these two playmates, outfitted in shorts and vintage boxy fur coats, brings both unsightly and charming surprises. All this plus a grooving soundtrack leaves you compelled to carry on with them and their sheer joy.
Javier de Frutos
The three films (a trilogy of COVID) by Javier de Frutos, all black and white, were created “under the worst of circumstances, under COVID, that were not about COVID,” the director said during his interview. His methods were influenced by this.
The Burning Building is a beautiful study in dance. A young man and woman together in a vacant room, except for four chairs and a few personal belongings common to students (backpack, water bottles) initially move together in alternative type militaristic steps in repetition. Soon, they take turns dancing displaying flawless form. Repeatedly, they’re interrupted, by suddenly noticing someone watching or intruding on them. A match is struck, fire is audible. This sequence plays over and over as do the dancers. They keep carrying on for one another, enjoying the process and each other, until the sounds of match striking and fire returns.
Whoever You Are is an award-winning cinematic adaptation of Walt Whitman’s seminal poem, Whoever You Are Holding Me Now In Hand (1860). The poem which has won over 29 international awards and nominations feels just as relevant today. The body’s of the couple in the film stir and gesture with intricacy to each quietly uttered word or phrase. Each frame, each edit is built precisely to the meter and emotion of the poem.
The Sequestered Disc In a description of the film de Frutos wrote: “On the eve of their retirement, an interviewer meets with [the same] two dancers [from Whoever You Are] to conduct an interview which gradually morphs into a disquieting interrogation.”
Calling it a verbatim film, every syllable and breath is physically articulated. The viewer can see what the characters say. Verbal expressions are exclamated through precise lip sync and unconventional, special effect edits, “revealing a cinematic picture of the interviewees’ responses.”
In a humorous and ultimately sobering vignette, the artists simultaneously enumerate their many injuries (eliciting both sympathy and astonishment at the amount). The man reveals “sequestered disc” — including a description of its perplexing explanation which he performs through gestures — identifies just one injury he’s sustained, as he considers the process of aging. Near this time the woman discusses leaving dance, something she’s loved all her life, now, in her later 40s, because she “doesn’t want her body to fall apart at 60.”
If you love dance, go see Dance Camera West film festival next January.
Details: www.dancecamerawest.org