PROGRAM

Floor Falls

Directors Jennifer Paterson, Lewis Gourlay, Abby Warrilow

United Kingdom 

Runtime: 2:56

Synopsis

A women stands, takes a breath, and moves. Arching back extending further than seems possible, she steps forward, rising up onto the tip of her toe and over the threshold. We see blackness then she appears. Rotating and twisting, the camera and her dance around each other. She suspends, or has the floor fallen? We focus in on her as she walks in air, gravity free, not knowing where we are, what is up and what is down. Spinning through the space, gradually we see her disappearing, focus fading and she is gone.

Floor Falls is a collaboration between award winning film makers Lewis Gourlay and Abby Warrilow of Cagoule and aerial dance choreographer Jennifer Paterson of All or Nothing Aerial Dance Theatre, featuring dancer Freya Jeffs.  

This short dance for screen brings together aerial harness techniques with dance for camera.

Director Biography - Jennifer Paterson, Lewis Gourlay, Abby Warrilow

Jennifer Paterson is Artistic Director of All or Nothing Aerial Dance Theatre, Scotland’s leading aerial dance company. Her first experience in dance for screen was as a performer in Katrina McPherson’s Moment. She has since forged a career as an aerial and dance performer, choreographer and director, helping to build the aerial scene in Scotland.

Lewis Gourlay and Abby Warrilow are Cagoule Productions.  

Choreographer and dance-film maker, Abby Warrilow works internationally on the sets of feature films, commercials, stage and music videos. Her client list has an impressive read and includes the likes of Paramount Pictures, Universal, EMI, BBC and Scottish Opera. 

Lewis Gourlay has a reputation both as respected and creative editor, and a talented video graphic artist, enabling him to work in each separate discipline or, as is increasingly required, in both simultaneously. 

Cagoule’s previous dance film, Etch, has won several awards and is still being shown in festivals across the world.

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Navigation

Director Marlene Millar 

Canada 

Runtime: 13:30

Synopsis

Set in the spectacular Burren region of the west coast of Ireland, Navigation explores the current humanitarian crisis of displacement and dislocation that is experienced both individually and collectively. Using the land itself to explore how we navigate through unknown terrain, themes of survival and perseverance, departure and renewal emerge in a nuanced and layered interpretation of the migration experience. The rhythms, movement, vocals and landscape define and embody this exploration, featuring the performances of 10 dancers, singers and a choir of 40 participants.

Director Biography - Marlene Millar

Filmmaker Marlene Millar has created dance, documentary and experimental media productions since 1989. She earned her BFA in Film Production at Concordia University in Montreal, pursued graduate filmmaking studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received a Pew Dance Media Fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. Marlene co-founded the production company Mouvement Perpétuel with Philip Szporer in 2001, co-creating internationally acclaimed arts documentaries, dance films and installations. Marlene has directed and co-produced 6 short films, including NAVIGTION, in the Migration Dance Film Project (MDFP) series, winner of over twenty-five international awards and prizes. MDFP was established by choreographer, composer and producer Sandy Silva and Millar in 2014. Marlene's 30 years of media arts practice was recently recognizing in a 5 month solo exhibition at Threshold artspace (Perth, UK). Marlene is committed to supporting the creative practice of independent filmmaking, mentoring emerging artists and teaching workshops across Canada and internationally.

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A Hard day’s night

Directors Benjamin Hoffman, Mathieu Mondoulet 

France 

Runtime: 4:25 

Synopsis

This film is a two-way street between architecture and modern dance. It was shot in the very famous Jean Daladier abandoned houses in Burgundy, France with the wonderful dancer and choreographer Thibaut Eiferman former member of the Batsheva ensemble in Tel Aviv directed by Ohad Naharin. 

This piece is about containment, it is a story of isolation, the temptation to live in this condition, and the strong will to extract from it. This is an introspection story through dancing that leads to a luminous ending.

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La Mécanique des Anges 

Director Bertrand Guerry

France

Runtime 13:13 

Synopsis

A testing journey, with no return, without other luggage than oneself, for a very particular destination, governed by very particular rules to which certain individuals will have to submit themselves. The big ball of the lost souls can then begin.

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Pas de Quoi

Director Paulo Filipe Monteiro

Portugal

Runtime: 10:53

Synopsis

A ferryboat. A meeting between two souls. Hurdles and shadows keep being overcome until the end. Bodies always striving to breathe along the way.

Director Biography - Paulo Filipe Monteiro

He wrote and directed Amor Cego/Three to Tango, 2010, 25’. Prize of the Jury at Festival Córtex, November 2010.He wrote and directed Zeus, 2017, 117’. Sinde Filipe won the Best Actor Prize at the 4th Indian Film Festival in 2016 in Mumbai. 4 Prizes in the Official Selection of the XXII Caminhos Film Festival At the 14th Festival Cinéma et Migrations Agadir Zeus won: Áquila Prize for Best Director 2018 (Paulo Filipe Monteiro) Special Mention at Festival du Film Méditerraneen d’Alexandrie, Oct. 2018. He directed 16 theatre plays. Full professor of cinema and of performing arts at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Has published extensively on cinema, performing arts and fiction.

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Waters into Wilderness

Director Quinn Wharton 

United States 

Runtime: 4:42

Synopsis

A short dance film looking at the impact of community space when its not filled with the community. Featuring LED, choreographed by Lauren Edson, Danced by Brett Perry, and music by Andrew Stensaas

Director Biography - Quinn Wharton

Quinn Wharton Is a Director and Choreographer with a specialty in human movement. He was born in Seattle and raised in a yurt on Hawaii. He danced for the San Francisco Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Quinn has choreographed and directed for such companies as the The Joffrey Ballet, Rolex, Airbnb, The Pacific Northwest Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet. He has lectured at Stanford and the University of Chicago.

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ID

Director Cass Mortimer Eipper

Australia 

Runtime: 5:58

Synopsis

‘Id’ follows six dancers in communion, each driven by their own instinctive impulses which manifest fast and slow. Propelled like machines through dispositions and space, oscillations of awareness illuminate shared conflicts — within the self, the couple and the tribe.

Director Biography - Cass Mortimer Eipper

Cass Mortimer Eipper is an award-winning director/choreographer/dancer. Creating for both stage and film, he has presented work throughout Australia, Europe, Canada and the U.S.A. Awards include: Global Short Film Awards Cannes: Best Dance Film - for ‘Brute’; The Helpmann Award: Most Outstanding Male Dancer for his performance in William Forsythe’s ‘Quintett’; Rome International Choreography Competition: Most Outstanding Performance for his work ‘Solo 1.5’; Stuttgart International Dance Festival: 3rd prize for his performance in Emma Sandall’s ‘BodySong’; West Australian Dance Awards: Most Outstanding Choreography for his collaboration with Emma Sandall on their work ‘Fleck & Flecker’. In addition to performing with Sydney Dance Company and West Australian Ballet, he has worked with and performed works by Gideon Obarzanek, Alexander Ekman, Melanie Lane, Jacopo Godani, Francis Rings, Lightfoot Leon, Andonis Foniadakis, Rafael Bonachela, Gabrielle Nankivell, Natalie Weir and William Forsythe.

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Hofesh Shechter's Clowns

Director Hofesh Shechter 

United Kingdom 

Runtime: 28:21

Synopsis

Hofesh Shechter's Clowns is a dance film that plays out a macabre comedy of murder and desire, asking how far we will go in the name of entertainment. Directed, choreographed and composed by Hofesh Shechter, it combines bold, exhilarating and tribal movement by ten dancers with a percussive, cinematic score.

Director Biography - Hofesh Shechter

Choreographer Hofesh Shechter OBE is recognised as one of the most exciting artists making stage work today, renowned for composing atmospheric musical scores to compliment the unique physicality of his movement. He is Artistic Director of the UK-based Hofesh Shechter Company, formed in 2008. The company are resident at Brighton Dome and Shechter is an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells. Hofesh Shechter’s repertoire for the company includes Uprising (2006), In your rooms (2007), The Art of Not Looking Back (2009), Political Mother (2010), Political Mother: The Choreographer’s Cut (2011), Sun (2013), barbarians (2015), Grand Finale (2017) and SHOW (2018) with his apprentice company, Shechter II. Shechter has also staged and choreographed works on leading international dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Batsheva Ensemble, Candoco Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 1, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet Flanders. He has choreographed for theatre, television and opera, notably at the Metropolitan Opera (New York) for Nico Mulhy’s Two Boys, the Royal Court on Motortown and The Arsonists, the National Theatre on Saint Joan and for the Channel 4 series Skins. As part of #HOFEST, a 4 week festival celebrating Shechter’s work across 4 iconic London venues, he co-directed Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice with John Fulljames at the Royal Opera House. In 2016 he received a Tony Award nomination for his choreography for the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Grand Finale is the latest full-length work in his canon, which premiered at La Villette with Théâtre de la Ville in Paris on June 14th, 2017 and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.

In 2018 Hofesh Shechter was awarded an honorary OBE for Services to Dance and the company's first dance film, Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns, was broadcast by the BBC in September to great acclaim.