enCore:
Dance on
Film
Re-Constructing the Dancing Body: Screen Dance & the ever fluid definition of Place & Time
enCore Dance on Film features short movies by dance filmmakers from around the world. These screenings are free and open to the public. Screened annually since 2014, enCore Dance on Film presents a selection of fascinating independent Screen Dance productions and serves as a platform for films which picture dance exclusively for, and with, the camera. Focusing on the interplay between dance and the techniques of filmmaking, enCore Dance on Film explores the possibilities and boundaries of Screen Dance as an art form.
Showcasing annually since 2014, for enCore Dance on Film 2022, 223 submissions were received from 32 different countries with 20 final selections representing 10 different countries.
RESOURCE by Maxime DOS, Martin HARRIAGUE (France)
2022 enCore: Dance on Film
Films are presented in chapters (in no particular order).
Chapter 1
Terpsichore's Daughters
Country: Greece
A young man is walking alongside a quiet beach. Suddenly he sees three mythical creatures, the Sirens. They enchant him with their moves, a gift they got from their mother, Terpsichore, the muse of the dance. The young man, entirely taken by their presence, follows them in the sea, oblivious to their true motives.
Directed by: Fani Latrou
Time Subjectives in Objective Time
Country: Finland
Three persons inside the old factory dances from room to another affirming moment of stagnation in endless time.
Directed by: Kati Kallio
Kati Kallio is Finnish dance filmmaker, curator, dancer and choreographer. She has MA degree in Dance from UniArts Helsinki – Theatre Academy. She is the leading dance film expert in Finland who receives annually several international invitations as curator, jury member, teacher and panelist. She is one of the pioneers of dance films in Finland and was the artistic director of Loikka Dance Film Festival during the years 2015-2018. Her previous responsibilities with Loikka included overseeing the festival’s audience outreach programs as well as organising dance film screenings and workshops for schoolchildren and students.
Her artistic works has been focused in dance films since 2008. Since then she has completed 16 short dance films that have been screened and broadcast widely around the globe. Since 2010 together with dance group Myskyryhmä has Kallio created a special method for inclusive participatory filmmaking. At the moment there are five short films produced by Myrskyryhmä completed.
COMPOSITION: snakes for her
Country: Greece
Five bodies in composition, create ever changing microcosms: striving to find meaning amidst their shared reality (-ies) when really it is a fluid sequence of narratives bearing no catharsis. Like in her dream, everything is fulfilled in itself. Interrupted.
The bodies are carriers and generators of these microcosms. They live, mature and decay in their own artificial conditions, questioning their very existence.
“…The other night I woke up into another dream. I am in a large black square box. Inside it I encounter a woman and two men.
They are trying to wrap their hands around her neck and asphyxiate her. I see something move on her head. Do you know what it was? Snakes. Her hair turned into snakes. The angrier she got, the anger grew the snakes.”
P.S.: Composition was initially materialized as a theatre dance performance. This film is another dimension of the piece. Composition for six bodies was performed five times in July 2020 in Athens at the industrial space of Amaxostasio, in the context of Papagou Festival and at the archaeological space of Plato’s Academia. It was filmed in the creative space of the company in August 2020.
Directed by: Antonia Economou
Antonia Economou was born in Athens in 1995. She is a choreographer, artistic director and performer. Antonia’s group of artists meet to question the boundaries of a theatre company in an ongoing creative process/workshop, not only driven by reaching an end result or the materialization of a performance. As a History of Art graduate (BA Hons Degree), she has established a close academic relationship with the discipline, and it constitutes her primary source of inspiration for creating images on stage. Antonia is also the artistic director and curator in most of the pieces that she conceptualizes and presents.
She is the founder, executive producer and artistic director at ΕRGO Collective. ERGO Collective (Non-profit Organisation) was initiated in September 2017 and it is a creative platform founded on the premise of collaboration. Antonia finds a way to develop her artistic process as a director in an open field, not limited in the theatre space, as it extends in the Visual Art practices.
Her most recent works performed in Athens include: PiETA (Roes Theatre 2018) and PiETA II (Alternative Stage, Greek National Opera, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, 2019).
The full lockdown interrupted the materialization of her piece Atitlon- Figure n.3 which is designed to take place in 2021.
Her latest piece, Composition for six bodies was conceived during the pandemic and performed in July 2020 in Athens at the industrial space of Amaxostasio, in the context of Papagou Festival and at the archaeological space of Plato’s Academia. It was filmed in the creative space of the company in August 2020.
SYNC
Country: Singapore
Two intertwined identities explore the tension between the real and artificial, the physical and virtual through movement and dance.
The film follows the perspectives of a couple, drawing parallels among the trust-building process between human individual, between programmatic systems, and between men and machines or artificial systems. Their bodily movement evokes the state of tension as well as bonding throughout the process of noticing, connecting, trusting and syncing with each other. Amidst uncertainties in this age of hybrid lives, and this era of technological transformations where we become increasingly intertwined with artificial realities, the film poses the question of what it takes to be really in sync with another identity.
Directed by: Layla Wei
Layla is a creative producer/director in an agency focusing on telling brand stories with an impact. She is currently working on various documentary, commercial and corporate productions as well as multimedia projects. Passionate about independent filmmaking, Layla seeks opportunities to be involved in film projects she believes in. As a director, she is keen on exploring uncharted territories using film as a medium for emotional storytelling, merging with other media formats like dance and animation.
As the producer for Life As It Is (2016) by Victor Gan, Layla represented the team to attend Palm Springs International ShortFest in 2017. She has also produced for two other short films by Victor On My Honor (2019) and The Old Man and The Scene (2020).
Layla graduated from National University of Singapore in Communications & New Media and in Film Studies and has been involved in productions in Shanghai and Singapore.
Your coffee, please
Country: Russia
Coffee runs down the arm to the disposable coffee cup. It reminds the blood from the vein.
The smile appears and disappears on the young girl’s face. She must smile despite her state of mind. Her inner demons start to go outside. She acts like strange animal or formless creature. The silent scream comes from her mouth. The girl’s arms turn into the wings, the body transforms itself. She has only one wish to destroy, to ruin everything around her and to run away as far as possible.
Suddenly the girl awakes behind the bar in the coffee shop at her usual work place. Young barista understands she run too deep inside herself.
She cheers herself up and goes on doing what doesn’t require special efforts: to make coffee and smile to people.
Directed by: Irina Kononva
Irina Kononova ( Russia) Director,
Choreographer, Dancer, Actress
Art Director and Choreographer of 10th Avenue Dance Theatre
Choreographer of TV Dance project “TANZY on TNT”
Director of theatre dance performances.
Dancer of Thierry Verger Company ( Paris, France).
Dancer of 10th AVDT ( nowadays ) ( Russia)
Finalist and winner of dance Festivals (contemporary dance- “CONTEXT” by Diana Vishneva, Open Look, Open your mind); freestyle battles all over the world ( hip-hop - Keep On Dancing, Fusion Concept, Juste Debout)
Bória
Country: Poland
The first and last scene of the short film "Bória" is filled by the painting of Zofia Stryjeńska entitled "Seasons. November - December (Pageant I - with a deer), growing out of the inspiration with the Polish and Hutsul folk culture. The dynamics of the bursting canvas, which is the quintessence of the decorative style in the painting of the Polish interwar period, prompts you to launch the action, wake up the flat composition, and introduce live movement.
The director of the film, Iwona Pasińska, treated a painter’s approach, namely the procession of the characters glittering with all colours, as an impulse to compose the choreography and build subsequent scenes that make up the metaphor of life in the community, moving on the line of life, experiencing good and evil, happiness and pain, unchanging rhythm of the nature and change of fate. Two worlds – the one of the individual and the one of the community – are separated by an invisible border. Because the community under a fabulously colourful and ludic mask of customs, traditions and ritual hides a different face. It throws outside the margin, "bites" and rejects.
The visual layer of the 9-minute film is co-created with ornamental motifs drawn from Stryjeńska's painting. Fragmentary narration is built of the words of traditional songs in the arrangement and performance of the Maliszów Band, which overlap with the language of contemporary dance. Interspecific combination of the dance film and painting makes the second-ever film production of the Polish Dance Theatre an interdisciplinary experiment from the borderland of arts.
Directed by: Iwona Pasińska
Iwona Pasińska is a choreographer, movement dramatist, theatre theorist, artistic director of Movements Factory and co-founder of the Movements Factory Foundation. Director of the Polish Dance Theatre.
SULLE PUNTE
Country: Italy
French title: En Pointe
On a stage, in front of the committee from a prestigious French ballet academy, Camilla is troubled. She replaced her best friend Sara, who was forced to drop out in the wake of a mysterious accident. Or has it been just an accident? Will Camilla be able to dance in spite of the burden of a secret far too big to withhold?
Directed by: Ulisse Lendaro
Ulisse Lendaro is an Italian producer, director and actor, known for having produced and starred in "Medley - Brandelli di scuola", a horror cult movie in the US (“Medley, school shreds”). In 2017 he produces his directorial debut Imperfect Age, with Anna Valle and Marina Occhionero, in partnership with Rai Cinema, Aurora Film and Mibact. The film, presented at Rome Film Fest Alice in the City and in many other International Film Festivals all over the world, has been very successful, and all reviews praised his way of directing the young actress and the theme addressed. Rolling Stone Magazine described Imperfect Age as a mix between Black Swan and All about Eve. The film even won the “Leoncino d’Oro for Film” a prize that is parallel to the Leone d'Oro at the Venice Film Festival, with the Best Cinema Review to Imperfect Age. Recently he produced and directed the short film En Pointe, with the extraordinary participation of Roberto Bolle.
Chapter 2
UTSYN / OUTLOOK
Country: Norway
UTSYN / OUTLOOK is a traveling cinematic journey through movement and architecture, and an intimate view of the unique museum building of Ivar Aasen-tunet in Ørsta, Norway. This dance film is a celebration of the curiosity and hunger for knowledge, and the ability to grow and gain new perspectives through exploring the art of literature as well as looking outward. The film was created for the 20th anniversary of this building, designed by world-renowned architect Sverre Fehn.
Directed by: Einy Åm Sparks
EINY ÅM SPARKS is a contemporary dance artist and video editor who creates works in the realm of dance, film and music as the Artistic Director of EyeKnee Coordination (www.eyekneecoordination.org). She recently produced, performed in and edited the dance fim UTSYN, commissioned by Ivar Aasen-tunet in Ørsta, Norway. Other works include a new dance/music collaboration MONTASJAR, and the multimedia dance performance DRYPP (drip), premiered in Hammerfest, Norway, and toured to Utah and New York, USA. In 2015 she produced and edited her first documentary film, Embracing Hiroshima, premiered at The Norwegian Documentary Film Festival in 2016, and her dance films ‘Amorphic’ and ‘Blue be gone’ have been screened by Dance Film Association / DCTV in NYC. Einy has created several performances independently, as well as in collaboration with composer Magnar Åm, among others the large scale multidisciplinary performance 'Picadon – will this moment ever let go?’, toured in Norway and Japan, the choral work ‘God’s I’s’ and ‘Encounter / Strykekvartett 3’, a solo performed together with Ålesund Strykekvartett. In addition, she has enjoyed collaborations with musicians such as Ellen Bødtker (harp), the jazz band Quest, Asian Wings and Geir Draugsvoll / James Crabb (accordion), performing both set and improvised choreography. Other endeavors include choreography for the design brand Kate Spade, choreography for theatre (Dir. Kristy Dodson), an official music video for Ryan Hobler. and collaborative projects with film/video artists Tyler Sparks, Run Shayo, Torill Haugen and Sharpelbow/Tori Sparks. In addition to residencies at Dansearena nord and SEANSE in Norway in the past couple of years, Einy was also an Associate Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts alongside Master Artist Liz Lerman in 2012 (New Smyrna Beach, FL), an Emerging Artist Resident at The Field (New York, NY) in 2011, and a recipient of the NACL Deep Space Performance Residency in 2011 (Highland Lake, NY). Her performance experience includes projects with Liz Lerman, Third Rail Projects, Tiffany Mills Company, AMDaT/Andrea Haenggi, David Quinn / Luke Miller, Sens/Noemie Lafrance, JMandle Performance, Mina Nishimura, Sleepdance and Liz Sargent Installations, among others.
Divided We Scroll
Country: United Kingdom
Technology is rewiring our brains and changing both our physical movements and inner thought processing.
'Divided We Scroll' is an experimental and eerie depiction of our intimate relationships with these technologies, which have become obsessive, compulsive and divisive.
Through contemporary dance, we explore the chilling reality of a constantly connected world where data and software is continuing to redefine us within an increasingly complex technological network.
Directed by: Klass Diersmann
Chapter 3
Detention
Country: United States
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." - Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
Mass incarceration and criminalization impact our communities of color exponentially. The prison-industrial complex, the culture of confinement, and the use of detention to control and dehumanize for a profit are a sickness of American capitalism. Replace detention with education, sanctuary, and rehabilitation. End the systemic disenfranchisement of people of color.
Directed by: Zaquia Mahler Salinas
Hors
Country: Canada
Hors is a dance film on the border of surrealism. It is carried by a reflection on the interior and
exterior places. Two women-landscapes merge into one another and transpose themselves into
distinct places, from winter landscapes to squeaky uninhabited places, in a quest towards their
place of belonging, if there is one. Dissonance between calm and discomfort, the images tell a
story that goes on under the flesh, in the interstices of the Self and the Other and proposes the
sensitive connection to nature as a space for rooting.
"From childhood I suspected that another reality existed. "- Julio Cortázar
Directed by: Amélie Gagnon, Julia-Maude Cloutier
Julia-Maude Cloutier is a contemporary dance artist based in Quebec. It recommends multidisciplinary collaborations and in situ performances. In recent years, she has been influenced by the eye of the camera which transforms her vision of dance by opening up new creative possibilities both on stage and on the big screen. She directed her first dance dance film Rust (in collaboration with Josiane Roberge in 2019. She is co-founder of the collective CRue with Amélie Gagnon.
Amélie Gagnon is a performer, choreographer and artistic advisor. Before her studies in contemporary dance, she studied literature and philosophy. She collaborates with
multidisciplinary artists in favor of an open creative process. Moved by her desire to perceive the intangible, she was initiated into directing with Isabel Rocamora, who would be a decisive
encounter. Hors is her first step into cinema.
Houwa
Country: Lebanon
This project is a collaboration between Joseph Gebrael and Andrew Gebrael.
With Andrew's cinematic vision and Joseph's choreography, they created a short dance film that portrays the discrimination, social injustice and racism that we witness in our modern society.
So who to blame in this chaos? َهو/ him , the other.
They question the state of hysteria and manipulation that can lead a person to Kill.
The Illusion of separation and division, and Tries to connect with the feeling of Oneness.
Directed by: Andrew Gebrael
Andrew was raised in a family of artists.
He started learning piano at the age of 7, and started theatre classes at the age of 11 with Dr. Elie Lahoud in Amshit. At the age of 12 he entered the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music where his knowledge in music deepened through Music Theory, Harmony, Analysis…
Andrew studied cinema and television in the Lebanese University, he collaborated with many artists to create commercials such as “akid ra7 te3jo2”, online series such as “ana mabsout”, and also with the Artist Joseph Gebrayel to create a trilogy of dance films “Houwa”, “L’Adbahlak” and “Lucid Green”.
Andrew participated in many international workshops such as “YES Academy”and Took Masterclasses with Julliard’s and Yale graduate Dr. Kaiyin Huang.
In 2019 He participated in the orchestral concert Carnival Of The Animals where he played alongside Dr. Seba Ali as 2nd piano in LAU Beirut and USEK Universities.
Andrew currently works as a Piano Teacher, Artistic Director, and Advertising Manager at Beit El Fan music school whyle continuing on creating his own artistic projects.
4
Country: Sweden
4 is an experimental short film featuring music & dance that brings the audience to a research space to identify the source of balance and proportions in the combined art forms. Two pianists and two dancers travel together in a retro-futuristic quest for knowledge through pulse and rhythm, creating a progressive and hypnotic piece, and placing the piano as a common operating table for their interaction. The music features extended piano techniques in an intense, minimalist score.
Directed by: Mariana Palacios, Adrián del Arroyo
In the last years, Mariana Palacios has developed a very ambitious project in the form of a film trilogy, in which she aims to unify music and dance with the cinematographic language. She is the director, producer, performer, and composer of her films, collaborating with a wide range of international artists.
The first two pieces, SERES (2016) and 4 (2020) have been presented in international dance film festivals around the world with great reviews. In her films, she addresses different music and dance genres and how they interplay, in a taking-and-giving egalitarian way. Mariana decontextualizes the piano as a concert instrument and presents it in different sceneries, experimenting with its projection. Mariana sets to build three types of symbiosis between music & dance: the instinctive in SERES, the physical in 4, and the mental in the third film of the trilogy. It has been through these recent work processes when Mariana has reached her potential as an artist by creating “visual music art”.
People in Cities
Country: United States
People in Cities is a short stop motion dance film which assembles over three thousand still images. Paired with implied environments, four dancers navigate internal and external pressures.
Referencing visual artist Robert Longo’s Men in Cities series, People in Cities is the second dance film in which director/choreographer Rosie Trump manifests the implied movement in Longo’s images.
Directed by: Rosie Trump
Rosie Trump is a dance choreographer, filmmaker, and the artistic director of Rosie Trump | With or Without Dance, a pick up company with a hybrid practice in dance and video media. Her work is nostalgic in style, feminist, and deliberately understated. She plays with the tension between the ordinary and the absurd in search of movement that is mutually comedic and political. Her dance films have been presented by the Utah Dance Film Festival, the Philadelphia Dance Film Festival, the Opine Dance Film Festival, the RADfest, the Jacksonville Dance Film Festival, and Dances Made to Order. She is the founder and curator of the annual Third Coast Dance Film Festival. Trump is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Nevada, Reno. www.rosietrump.org
Chapter 4
De-Eschatology
Country: United States
De-Eschatology is a physical manifestation of the claustrophobic conditions created by the COVID-19 crisis and the yearning to break free from them. The piece seeks to draw attention to a heightened sense of touch, which directly results from the lack of physical contact many in quarantine face. The film's trajectory explores the gradual de-escalation of shelter-in-place orders, and its psychological effects.
Directed by: Charly Santagado, Eriel Santagado
~mignolo dance~ was founded by Charly and Eriel Santagado in 2017. They have been dancing and creating together for more than ten years and use this experience to continue to collaborate with each other and other dancers and artists to create new work that explores elements of various artistic mediums through movement. The company has had work produced at many festivals including KoDaFe, Dumbo Dance Festival, Triskelion’s SummerFest, Waxworks, Peridance's APEX, and Koresh’s Come Together Dance Festival. Most recently, their work was produced in HERE Arts Center's Co-op Sublet Series and was presented at Inclined Dance Project's inQuad Split Bill Series at Dixon Place. Their first evening-length work will be produced by Jersey City Theater Center this year.
PAIN.BALLET | POLICE DRONES
Country: Russia
Pain.Ballet is a project of documentary choreography, where current events in Russia and the world are covered in the language of plastic and physical theater. The reason for the first film is the protests in Moscow in the summer of 2019 and the subsequent persecution of participants.
The second episode was a reaction to the news about the production of patrol police drones in Russia. The story of the loss of personal space and the reinforcement of Big Brother became the basis for the unique dance of four drones and one human being.
CG were not intentionally used in the work, the dancer performs all movements and tricks together with four sports drones, each of which was controlled by a professional drone pilot.
Directed by: Sergey Ilin, Igor Sharoyko
Sergei Ilin Graduate of the Moscow School of Cinema, directing course by Alexei Popogrebsky and Boris Khlebnikov.
For 10 years worked on russian TV as a screenwriter and showrunner.
The last few years has been carried away by the physical theater and modern choreography. Actor of the plastic Apparat.Theater.
The creator and director of the choreodoc project PAIN.BALLET
Igor Sharoiko was born in Kupino city ( Russia)
He graduated from the Novosibirsk Theatre university , where he studied drama and film acting.
Now he is teaching a physical theatre course in Dialog Lab, performing and acting in Gogol center theatre (Moscow)
His works as a movement director are performed on the stages of such theaters as: Gogol Center, Praktika, Tsim, TYUZ, Krasnoyarsk.
Swoosh
Country: United Kingdom
Contemporary Dance film shot on super 16mm and full frame digital combined with the ARRI Trinty, I wanted to make a short dance film combining these elements to create dream world, without special effects.
Directed by: Daniel Cawthorne
Another me in the world
Country: China
With the rapid development of cities in modern society, the scope of nature is shrinking. In this context, the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature has become particularly important. The film is about when nature and the city are regarded as two independent individuals, which are originally unrelated to each other. With the rapid development of society, they tend to merge.
Directed by: Yiming Fan
Yiming Fan, graduated from Beijing Dance Academy and majored in New Media Choreography. Freelance editor, and photographer who has participated in multiple video productions of Chinese dance plays and parties.
Anyone
Country: United States
A young woman, searching.
Directed by: James Kinney
From stage to screen, James Kinney's celebrated artistic vision has established him as a respected voice in the world of dance entertainment.
Kinney was named BroadwayWorld's Best Choreographer for his work on Phoenix Theatre's NEWSIES, and Casa Mañana's Children of Eden, created celebrated pieces for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS annual Easter Bonnet Celebration at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway, and created world-premier pieces for Fire Island Dance Festival and Hudson Valley Dance Festival, as well as several ballets in repetoire with New Jersey Ballet. Kinney's choreography has been seen on such iconic stages as The Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, The Old Globe, The Kimmel Center and The Marquis Theatre on Broadway. Mr. Kinney's work has also bridged the worlds of dance and fashion, having directed and choreographed acclaimed events for Hermès of Paris.
Today, his work can be seen on stages and television screens around the country, with over 50 musical theatre productions choreographed under his belt. He's become known as a vital asset in creating new and innovative movement for musical theatre, the concert dance world, film and television, and live events, all while staying uniquely true to his artistic vision of smart, meaningful movement, oozing with style.
Attention Span
Country: United States
A dancer is shot from 16 camera angles and edited at a disturbing rate. And then suddenly, nothing happens. Intrigued? Watch on.
Directed by: Mitchell Rose
Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Mitchell Rose was a New York-based choreographer/performance artist. His company toured internationally for 15 years. Eventually he was drawn more to visual media and chose to become a filmmaker, entering The American Film Institute as a Directing Fellow. Since A.F.I., his films have won 95 festival awards and are screened around the world.
The New York Times called him: "A rare and wonderful talent." The Washington Post wrote that his work was “in the tradition of Chaplin, Keaton, and Tati—funny and sad and more than the sum of both.”
Mr. Rose is currently a professor of filmmaking at Ohio State University.
My Own Worst Enemy
Country: Netherlands
On your way to reaching a goal you are often battling against yourself. You take various steps, but it is the most unpredictable move that defeats your own worst enemy.
Directed by: Harrie Verbeek, Jelena Kostić
Meet the Adjudicators
Ronald Llewellyn Jones
Ronald Llewellyn Jones is an interdisciplinary artist based in Houston, Texas. Jones’ artwork explores barriers between artists and audiences, as well as individuals and their communities by challenging their respective perceptions as it relates to access and agency within normative societal structures.
Jennifer Scully-Thurston
Jennifer Scully-Thurston has worked in Dance her whole career in contemporary companies, Off-Broadway shows, higher education and found her voice writing Dance & Theater reviews. Her work caught the attention of The Dance Critics Association and their "Emerging Writer Award". She brought her expertise to animation and film with Grasshorse Studios, her administrative chops with Core Dance & today she is teaching life skills to children through dance and music in NC public school with NC Arts in Action. Today, she is a Filmmaker & Director of FilmFest by Rogue Dancer, a monthly on-line Film Festival devoted exclusively to Dance.
Juana Farfan
Juana Farfan is an independent artist and dance educator based in Atlanta, Georgia, originally from Bogota, Colombia. She has been creating and performing in the Atlanta dance community since 2002, as well as being an arts curriculum integration and dance teacher in grades K-12.
enCore: Dance on Fim Deadlines:
Submissions for 2022 will open in September.
Christian Meyer
composer/musician
prize-winning scores for movies, commercials, dance-theatre
concerts and performances
sound installations and photography exhibitions