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NewGrounds: a collection of dance films
About the Films
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virtual concert
Moving Current | dance collective
Offering dance experiences for all ages.
dance à la carte
Presents
Moving Current Dance Collective celebrates contemporary dance artists with another sensational NewGrounds! Since 2001, NewGrounds has been a platform for both young and experienced professional choreographic voices. NewGrounds now annually includes a moving virtual experience.
the playground
Sponsors
Join us for the 2021 NewGrounds Virtual Concert,
Details TBA.
Excerpts from the NewGrounds Concert are also a part of
Moving Current Dance Collective’s new Dance à la carte: an interactive
exploration. Dance à la carte is a fun NewGrounds component that allows
viewing participants to choose a short dance excerpt from the concert,
modify the speed, and match it with a music choice, to create
their own dance list.
Explore
the Relationship of Music & Dance
Check it out!
A landscape of moving pieces that you can transform.
Have fun! Play with the laws of motion. Toss the geometric shapes,
shift and flip the twirling dancers, watch while they tumble across the page.
The playground is an amusing exercise in the laws of physics.
And, by the way, is also kid friendly and free!
Dance!
What goes up, must come down!
Inconstant Conversations
is directed by Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves of
Orange Grove Dance (Baltimore / DC). After a series of workshops,
each participant will create a film that Colette and Matt will edit to create
12 short films; moving portraits of each solo performer as well as a combined
film that puts all 12 performances next to each other for an online audience to see
the work translate from isolation to shared experiences. The films will investigate
the dire nature of how social media technology often unintentionally isolates people and yet how people keep pushing to reach through the screens of
our lives to find important and intimate connections.
Special thanks for the following:
Music Selection 5: “Memory Line - Fly” - Devin Rice
Music Selection 14: “Rumble” - Benjamin Tissot (Bensound)
Close X
Music Selection 10: “CountryBoy” - Benjamin Tissot (Bensound)
Music Selection 4: “Breakin and Enterin” - Jonas the Plug Expert
Music Selection 13: “Funnysong” - Benjamin Tissot (Bensound)
Music Selection 2: “Phase 2” - Xylo-Ziko
Music Selection 3: “Instinct” - Benjamin Tissot (Bensound)
Music Selection 9: “Chrysalis Opening” - Devin Rice
Music Selection 6: “You’ll Find Old Dixieland in France” - Pietro
Music Selection 8: “Crosswire” - Blue Dot Sessions
Music Selection 1: “Backspace” - Blear Moon
Music Selection 12: “Their House” - Devin Rice
Music Selection 11: “Drift” - Scott Holmes
Music Selection 7: “The Enormity of 2” - Devin Rice
Program ATa Mara (Poland)
This production was inspired by the life and paintings of Tamara Lempicka. Principal photography took place in Park Mużakowski which has been listed on the UNESCO List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage since 2004. The Park is administered on the Polish side by the National Heritage Institute and on the German side by Fürst–Pückler–Park Bad Muskau Foundation.
The film consists of two, polar opposite approaches to imagery, that merge into an ambiguous yet enticing portrait of a woman. One one side, TA MARA is overwhelmed by an artistic frenzy that awakens her inner demon, on the other - she is calm, frozen in a state of perpetual waiting. These extremes, similar to the sides of Muskau Park, form one single unity. The expressed movements of female dancers from the Polish Dance Theater team reflect the elegance, precision and figurality of Łempicka's paintings.
Tamara Lempicka was an exceptional artist - her paintings modern and full of vivid colors. She found inspiration in cubism, neoclassical paintings by Boticielli and motion pictures (which became popular in the 1920's and 1930’s). Her lifestyle was as unorthodox as it was scandalous.
Lempicka died in 1980. Her ashes, according to her will, was scattered above El Popo volcano in Mexico. Tamara’s paintings are continuously sought after by collectors and pop culture icons, including Madonna, Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicolson. Her turbulent life was dramatized into numerous extremely popular theatre plays. She herself became an icon, her art recognized as timeless.
Only two of Tamaras Lempicka's paintings remain in polish public collections: “Still nature” in the Mazovian Museum in Płock and “Lassitude” in the National Museum in Warsaw.
Director: Iwona Pasińska
Initiation: Bória, Toporzeł
Writer: Iwona Pasińska
Polish Dance Theatre
Please visit https://www.ptt-poznan.pl/pl/projects/filmowy/en
Morning (United States) Best Film
Morning is a dance film dedicated to those we've lost to the Covid-19 pandemic. Produced by award winning dance filmmaking duo, Wilder Project, the film honors the grief that has accompanied us through this period. In an exploration of aliveness, transition, and catharsis, the dancers claw through different textures of earth and water with a sense of reverence and surrender. Set to a reimagining of the traditional Appalachian spiritual, “Bright Morning Stars”, “Morning” reminds us of the beauty of the sand under our feet and the breath in our lungs and asks its viewers to consider that our collective reflection inspire us to create a world where we all can live.
Director, Choreographer & Editor: Holly Wilder
Cast: Haley Sung, Christopher Luis Medina & Victoria Daylor
Cinematographer: Duncan Wilder
Assistant Director: Victoria Daylor
Music: Jean Rohe, Liam Robinson
Choreographic Collaborators: Curtis Thomas, Yoshie Fujimoto Kateada, Victoria Daylor Please visit: https://www.wilderprojectdance.com/
Knock—Knock (Germany)
Depression comes creeping slowly. It nests itself in you... "Knock Knock" describes the low points of a depression and the constant fight with, against and for oneself.
In the video a young woman delivers a contemporary performance to the song "Knock Knock" by Lance Butters. She expresses the fight with the depression filmed in a single take. Depression doesn't start on an instant and it doesn't end quickly. The in-between is often a blurry mess. That’s why everything is fluid here. So the different framings as well as her mood switches are not achieved by cutting, but rather by precisely planed camera movement to the choreography and the beat.
Director: Christian Alsan
Music: Lance Butters
Producer: Moritz Mebesius
Director of Photography: Kaspar Hornikel
1st AC: Tim Adam
Key Grip: Niso Collins
Best Boy: Lukas Hambach
Dancer: Capucine Schattleitner
Please visit https://christianalsan.com/home
Black Stains (United States) Best Film
Black Stains addresses the systemic pattern of racial profiling by the police. Inspired by the personal experiences of choreographer Trent D. Williams, Jr., the film illustrates the reality of being black in the United States. Through interviews with men of varying ages and robust athletic dancing, the film persistently asks the question: why do we not see black men as human?
Co-Directors: Trent D. Williams Jr. & Tiffany Rhynard
Choreographer: Trent D. Williams Jr.
Cinematographer: Tiffany Rhynard
Editor: Heather Mathews
Composer: Farai Malianga
Cast: Jerel Hercules, Taariq Lewis, Daniel Morimoto, Michael “Mikell” Pinkney, Larry Rosalez, Ersom Williams, Trent D. Williams Jr., George Whitehead.
Producers: Heather Mathews, Tiffany Rhynard, Trent D. Williams Jr.
Please visit www.sistersunitepro.com/work#/blackstains
Woman’s Work (Netherlands)
Power, the male gaze, capitalism: our society is full of normally assumed structural relationships that collectively form the status quo. The way we think, the way we look, even what we can fantasize about is framed by these structures within which society takes shape. Choreographer Annemijn Rijk is fascinated by how the body relates to these social, often hidden or socially accepted frameworks. As well as by how the body can challenge them.
For the third theme of her Body of Art project, the theme “Beauty”, she investigated how the body today, within these systems, relates to beauty. She found that for her, beauty equals transparency. Transparency in showing the body honestly, in the expression of her dancers, as well as transparency in exposing hidden, social systems.
Woman's Work shows six women of different generations and backgrounds. Inspired by the idea of a catwalk as a clamping metaphor for the ideal female image, the women walk over a narrow, steel beam at a great height. The film shows their individual portraits, their own journey within the for them dominant system and their joint resistance. While dancing, they balance mutual relationships, pressure, expectations and manipulation. The fall is inevitable. As is the drive to constantly search for how their flexible bodies can resist the static, steel beam.
Director & Choreography: Annemijn Hélène Rijk
Producer: Monne Tuinhout (Branded Cinema, Naar Huis)
Dancers: Caroline Neijndorff, Pauline Roelants, Revé Ter Borg, Laura De Vos, Izah Hankammer, Yara Meziane el Otmani
Director of Photography: Richard Spierings
Music composer: Aura Bouw
Gaffer: Teun Pulles
Grip: Björn Schumacher
1st AC: Casper Fraij, Rohwel De Rot
Sound Recordist: Joris Geurts
Costum designer: Annemarije Van Harten
Make-up artist: Joyce Walian
Line Producer Branded Cinema: Monne Tuinhout
Production Manager: Frederique Rinkens
Business Manager, Body of Art: Laura De Vos
Production preparation: Rick Hooijberg
Gymnast trainer: Chantal Jorna
Please visit https://bodyofart.nl/en
Nina (United States)
Nina is a project that explores the intersection of memory and place. The work shows how isolation in such spaces supports the freedom to feel the depth and width of the emotional range conjured up by the memory.
Director: Jenna Zavrel
Key Cast: Nina Tucker
Producer: Neal Ten Eyck
Please visit https://jennazavrel.com/bio
Program BHooke’s Law (Taiwan)
Hooke's law is a basic law in the theory of mechanics and elasticity, which refers to the physical changes of solid materials when they are subjected to force.
In the face of pressure and resistance, the physical reaction can be calculated by formula to calculate the time and space changes of energy conversion.
How are inner emotions calculated relative to physical responses?
The film uses physical formulas to reflect the elastic changes of pressure and resistance in people's hearts. Faced with social and personal own pressure, each person's choice of response brings different conclusions.
Director: Channel Huang
Choreographer: Yu-Fen Huang
Writer: Shen-Chuan Huang
Producer: Heng Ping
Please visit https://www.danceforum.com.tw
The Wall (Russian Federation)
A street artist who creates gloomy graffiti wants to depict something similar on a dull gray wall next to the bar but falls asleep from fatigue. His spray cans laying on the ground were used by a couple heading for the bar to draw something bright on the wall. More and more people join them. Gradually, joint creativity leads to the fact that the wall becomes a wonderful work of art.
Now, during the pandemic, when people have been divided and frightened for a long time, I really want to show that humanity has always strived and strives for beauty. In any conditions it is trying to turn gloomy negativity into bright reality.
Director, Writer, Producer: Liudmila Komrakova
A Butterfly Is Knocking on the Window (Islamic Republic of Iran) Injuries do not always manifest themselves as visible scars.
Director Statement
It all started from a ruined house whose window glass was broken. I think that when women are harmed by their family or society, they are broken like the window glass of a house, and now this breaking can take many forms.
Director, Writer, Producer: Mohammad Hasani
Editor: Abbas Mohammadi
Sound Design: Abbas Mohammadi
Cinematographer: Mohammad Sadegh Darvishamiri
Pit Stop (United States) Best Film
Director & Choreography: Dionne Noble & Andy Noble
Cast: Wesley Cordova, Vincent Calleros, LaRodney Freeman Costume Design: Barry Doss
Lighting: Bryan Ealey
Please visit https://www.noblemotiondance.com
I Am Still Waiting (United States)
I Am Still Waiting, comes from the restless and still of isolation and a self-imposed attempt to rewild oneself back into life. The text prose by Elena Hecht and performance by Leslie Kraus express an untethering from memory and a dissolution into pastoral abyss. The work was filmed in residency on location in Longford, Ireland.
Director: Stephanie Liapis
Writer: Elena Hecht
Producer: Stephanie Liapis
Key Cast: Leslie Kraus
Choreography: Stephanie Liapis, Leslie Kraus
Please visit https://www.stephanieliapis.com
ReEntry (United States)
What does re-entering the world really look like now and are you a changed person coming out of quarantine? This film explores the effects of living through the pandemic and how what we went through on the inside affects how we respond to our outside reality.
Director and Choreographer: Lauren Putty White
Cinematographer and Editor: Daniel Madoff
Composer: Matt Davis
Musicians: Matt Davis, Brent White
Dancers and Collaborators: Amber Janelle Brown, Joe Gonzalez, Sarah Warren, Lauren Putty White
Special Thanks: Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Philadelphia Dance Theatre, Sunflower Philly, Mount Zion Baptist Church of Holmesburg.
Please visit https://puttydanceproject.org
Game Day! (United States)
Directors: Matthew Sommers, Talia Demps, Joe Kelly
Producer: Matthew Sommers
Key Cast: Matthew Sommers, Talia Demps
Choreography: Matthew Sommers, Talia Demps
Please visit https://www.matthewsommersdance.com