Screendance@VisualcontainerTV
Curated by Davide De Lillis
From the 6th of May to the 6th of June 2024
Artists: Jo Roy – Marta Renzi – Shaun Clarke – Enzo Riccio – Leah Katz – Renée Yoxon – L. reducta dance project – Irishia Hubbard Romaine – Dehors/Audela – Thomas Corriveau – Elaine Harvey.
Still Frame: Rollation by Renée Yoxon
VisualcontainerTV is thrilled to announce the online streaming of Screendance@VisualcontainerTV 2024. This independent curatorial project navigates through the broad and constantly evolving landscape of Screendance, an inherently hybrid genre that boasts numerous differences in approach.
A special thanks to the participating artists and to Elisa Frasson for her help during the curatorial process.
PROGRAM
2001: A Dance Film – Jo Roy
Death & Other Disguises – Marta Renzi
Dark Night Cold Ground – Shaun Clarke
Cassandra, oggi saro colpita a morte – Enzo Riccio
Who are we when all this unfolds – Leah Katz
Rollation – Renée Yoxon
A Lady and Her Dog – L. reducta dance project
Unearthed – Irishia Hubbard Romaine
Sogno più non ricordo_I dream no more I remember – Dehors/Audela
They Dance With Their Heads – Thomas Corriveau
Dancing with Dementia – Elaine Harvey
2001: A Dance Film by Jo Roy
2001: A Dance Film is set to Johann Strauss’ The Blue Danube Waltz, and the setting is an exact replica of the white bedroom seen at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. There, and to this sonic background, Roy performs a graceful, interpretive, and hallucinatory dance captured on gorgeous 35mm.
Death & Other Disguises by Marta Renzi
In what ends up as a tribute to a departed colleague, Eagle, Rabbit, Horse and Pig improvise solos that fall somewhere between impersonation and meditation. Yvonne Rainer, Marta Renzi, David Thomson and Arthur Aviles lend their personalities, masked, to a sequence of events that refer to each other, performance art, el mundo de Oz, life and death. Richly odd. Weirdly touching
Dark Night Cold Ground by Shaun Clarke
Set to the recording of “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” by Blind Willie Johnson, this short dance film explores the contradictory stereotypes of black men: masculinity, vulnerability, ignorance, aggression and sexuality.
Cassandra oggi saro colpita a morte by Enzo Riccio
This video project starts from the tragedy of Cassandra, from the non-word and the pain that foresight carries with it: the bodies of the performers are forced into blindness, into the vain attempt to find a seated position, into the impossibility of communicating with voice.
What remains then if not movement?
Who are we when all this unfolds by Leah Katz
Who are we when all this unfolds was shot between March and December 2020, spanning the duration of a pregnancy and the first COVID lockdowns in Berlin, Germany. The film acts as a movement diary during these particular times of uncertainty, both on the global and the cellular level. The first dance was captured the day after a positive pregnancy test, the same day that lockdown began in Berlin, and the last dance was captured the night before the child was born. This film depicts a desire for movement during a time of globally restricted movement, during a body’s changes and the growth of a new being.
Rollation by Renée Yoxon
The intimacy between a mobility aid user and their mobility aids is felt but hard to describe.
With use, a mobility aid becomes an extension of the disabled body.
A Lady and Her Dog by L. reducta dance project
A Lady and Her Dog was shot in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, in May 2021, towards the end of a long period of curfews and restrictions.
On a beautiful evening, a lady and her dog go out for a stroll downtown in a city where conservatism is the hard-coded way of being; acts outside what is expected are frowned upon. She adheres to all rules and regulations established during this period of curfews. And yet, passers-by are emotionally challenged by the sight of the lady and her dog. They respond accordingly.
Unearthed by Irishia Hubbard Romaine
Unearthed reimagines forgotten images of Black figures through embodied Black social dance movement. As the dancers navigate through history, they remember, reflect, and reclaim their identities and stories from the past, breathing new life into forgotten narratives.
Sogno più non ricordo_I dream no more I remember by DEHORS/AUDELA
It was still the hour of the woods, and we could go no further. That summer day, the fog rolled through the doors and filled our spirits.
A gateway. a threshold, and a figure pausing and manoeuvring his being within that misplaced frame before the (in)possible crossing.
A liminal ritual of a mystical nature, a palindrome film, a magical and archaic place: si sedes non is. At a certain time, at a certain place, not yours, before we cross this time, we can go no further.
The title is a homage to the italian poetry of Lorenzo Calogero.
They Dance With Their Heads by Thomas Corriveau
The severed head of a choreographer is held captive by an eagle on a desert island. With a dazzling mastery of drawing and painting, this animated short unexpectedly takes us into the sensitive world of an artist madly in love with dance.
Dancing with Dementia by Elaine Harvey
Dancing with Dementia is a short dance film, based on an excerpt from the original audio documentary, which aims to animate and reimagine the metaphorical discourse around dementia by asking people affected by the condition to conceive of it as a dance.
Comprised entirely of archived footage of social dancing in early-mid twentieth century UK, the film has been cut and re-combined to create a rhythmic and gestural choreography which is reflective of dementia as a social, relational and embodied phenomenon.
Davide De Lillis is a curator, multidisciplinary artist and somatic educator. He holds an MA in Choreographing Live Art from the University of Lincoln (UK) and a II Level Master in Environmental Humanities from Università Roma Tre (IT)