EMPAC announces winners of 2008 DANCE MOViES COMMISSION!

[Hélène Lesterlin]

Dear friends and colleagues,

Our second round of DANCE MOViES Commissions are underway!

Below is our official announcement email, if you'd like to post the info anywhere or forward it to people...

The full press release, which includes the short list, is attached as well. Our website is going to be updated in the next week so don't visit it for more info yet!

Best wishes,

Hélène Lesterlin
Curator, EMPAC


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THE EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA AND PERFORMING ARTS CENTER ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2008 DANCE MOViES COMMISSIONS!

EMPAC – the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - announces the four recipients of the 2008 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. Chosen from a short list of 28 projects by an international panel of dance-film practitioners, curators and producers, the projects range in format, style and emotional tone: from single-channel video installation to 16mm film, from the spectacular to the surreal.

The projects will receive awards ranging from $7,000 to $40,000 and will be premiered in the fall of 2009 at EMPAC.

EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission 2008 Recipients
(in alphabetical order of titles)


"Body/traces" by digital media artist Sophie Kahn and choreographer Lisa Parra (US)
A single-channel video installation reanimating 3D laser scans of the body in motion, resulting in a ghostly imperfect trace of the dancer's movement at human-scale.

"Eyes Nose Mouth" choreographed and conceived by Noémie Lafrance, directed by Patrick Daughters (USA)
A dance film in which one take follows a single figure, streaming through fast-changing and surreal environments, ceaselessly swept forward in the flux of urban time.

"Looking Forward - Man and Woman" directed by Roberta Marques, choreographed and performed by Michael Schumacher and Liat Waysbort (Brazil/Holland)
The third film in a trilogy experimenting with the reversing of movement and time in video and dance, creating mind-binding illusions in partnering while on a Sunday walk on the beach.

"Sunscreen Serenade" directed and choreographed by Kriota Willberg, sound by Carmen Borgia, illustration/animation by R. Sikoryak (US)
A global warming-themed Depression-era musical spectacle populated by scantily costumed hand puppets.


The selection panel comprised Leonel Brum (Brazil), Lynette Kessler(USA), Christina Molander (Sweden), Laura Taler (Canada), Hélène Lesterlin, dance curator at EMPAC, and Johannes Goebel, the director of EMPAC.
The DANCE MOViES Commission is a program launched by EMPAC to support the creation of new works in which dance meets the technologies of the moving image. As the first major commissioning program for dance film established in the US in 2007, it is already having a significant national and international impact. The four film projects commissioned in last year’s round will premier at EMPAC’s upcoming opening celebration in October 2008.

The Commission is supported by EMPAC’s Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and the Performing Arts. It is open to artists based in North and South America who are making video, film and installation work.

For more information, including the work selected for the short list , please visit www.empac.rpi.edu.