EMPAC Announces Recipients of the DANCE MOViES Commission 2011-2012, USA

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

EMPAC announces the winning projects of this year’s DANCE MOViES Commission! Ranging from a six-minute hand-drawn animation seen in a built theater set, to a ten-part visual meditation of a man in Rome, to a love story told through shadowy overlays, these projects all test the definition of what dance on screen can be.

Chosen out of 93 proposals by a panel of dance artists, filmmakers, and curators, the three projects will be created over the course of one year and will premiere in the fall of 2012 as part of the Filament festival at EMPAC.

DANCE MOViES Commission 2011-2012 Projects

Animated Dance Film (US)
Choreographer/Director/Set designer: Sarah Michelson
Composer: Pete Drungle
Animator: Joanna Quinn

Sarah Michelson continues her willful collision of the elements of choreography and visual art, as she shifts her vision to animation in this new work developed with filmmaker Joanna Quinn. Presented in a built set environment, this hand-drawn dance cartoon created from an original live dance amplifies ideas of artifice in theater.

In the first place… (US)
Created and performed by Colin Gee
Composer: Erin Gee

Colin Gee’s work hovers at the intersection of architecture, film, and performance, finding its expression through a restrained physical presence. Comprised of 10 short films shot in Rome, this new work reframes the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an Italian pastoral romance published in 1499, as a series of 10 decisive moments in which the protagonist uses landmarks to reorient himself while pursuing his beloved.

Overlay (Argentina)
Director: Cayetana Vidal
Choreographer/Dancer: Sofia Mazza
Dancer: Diego Poblete

Director Cayetana Vidal and choreographer Sofia Mazza come together once again to create a single-channel installation that explores the film technique of overlay as a narrative device. In an illusory world, two lovers living parallel lives, day for one and night for the other, with seasons inverted, only meet in the artful interlocking of image and sound.

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The DANCE MOViES Commission is a program that supports the creation of new works in which dance meets the technologies of the moving image. Established in 2007, it has already had a significant national and international impact, with the creation of 17 new works to date.

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