PICKS 1
September 19th @ 7:00PM | Tomorrow Theater | Run Time: 1 hour 20 minutesWe begin our festival with a cohort of nine earnest, light-soaked offerings of dance and film. Picks 1 opens with a solo poem that glides across the skin, celebrating the body as earth (Brown Boys, Australia), and closes with an ensemble of women throwing wide their rage (Maldonne, France).
In between, we’re invited into stories of round repetition and soft fatigue (Corralling of Circles, China), and into layered digital elements laid over bodies seeking passage (SLUGS, USA/Oregon). We meet Carmen (Spain), a young street flamenco superstar, and are held in the precise and fierce tension of a daughter’s plea for freedom (Spoken Movement Family Honour, United Kingdom).
The second half of Picks 1 begins with I’m Here (United Kingdom), a collaborative exploration of grief danced by former and current members of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. From there, we move into the cultural crossroads of the Silk Road in the goddess-inspired Kucha (China), and finally to the sweet, colorful pas de deux Passing By (United States), which sails us into the coiled fury of Maldonne, where we end the night in defiance and sisterhood.
Brown Boys
Australia
Director: Cass Mortimer Eipper
Director, Writer, & Dancer: Daniel Mateo
Co-directed by Daniel Mateo and Cass Mortimer Eipper, Brown Boys is a film inspired by a collection of poems that explore a sense of home and comfortability in our own bodies.
For Daniel, telling this story is very important. It’s a dance film about connection and highlighting the beauty of this unspoken vibration between land and body. It carries the holistic and physical nourishment needed to heal us as Indigenous people.
Corralling of Circles
China
Director & Choreographer & Dancer: Siye Tao @siyetao
Cinematographer & Editor: Qingwen Yan @yqw850699278
Co-choreographer: Theo Qu @qydancec
Sound & Composer: Kevin MacLeod
This short film is a far cry of the impulses to escape from a suffocating but all-too-familiar setting, which erodes our souls. The circular shapes, repetitive tasks, swirling movements seem to carry the woman into a sinking hole. Can she finally break free and find her way out?
SLUGS
United States / Local Artist
Directed by: Marli Hughes (@_marliandme), Brenton Salo (@brantonsalo), Everett Nate Yockey (@everettnateyockey)
Starring & choreographed by: Franco Nieto (@fcofoto), Charles Roy Jr. (@charlesroyjr), Casey Holzman (@kchxlz)
Cinematographer & Director of Photography: Everett Nate Yockey (@everettnateyockey)
Photographer: Brenton Salo (@brentonsalo)
Film Editor & Post Production Design Director: Adam Smith (@throwyourphoneout)
2D Animation & 3D Visual Effects Design: Ivan Vidovic (@ivanvidovic)
Original Score: Andrew Black (@andy____black)
Art & Movement Direction, Props & Set Design: Marli Hughes (@_marliandme)
Hair & Makeup: Paige Ashcroft (@paigeashcroft)
Wardrobe & Styling: Franco Nieto (@fcofoto), Charles Roy Jr. (@charlesroyjr), Casey Holzman (@kchxlz)
SLUGS is an exploration of movement, resistance, and environment. It reimagines form through a distorted lens of layered digital elements, creating a language that exists outside the physical world.
In SLUGS, bodies seek passage, yet meet unseen barriers. Environments oscillate between organic and artificial, where the performers, like slugs, navigate pathways of tension and release. An otherworldly tone and sense of cyclical entrapment amplify the film’s central question: What lies just beyond reach?
Carmen
UK/Spain
Director: Andrew Margetson @andymargetson
Director of Photography: Federico Alfonzo
Choreographer and Dancer: Carmen Aviles @carmenaviles13
A young woman, dressed in a tracksuit, walks through the backstreets of Sevilla into a housing project. This is Carmen Aviles – the young street superstar of flamenco.
Spoken Movement Family Honour
Dancers: Kwame Asafo-Adjei @spoken_movement, Catrina Nisbett @cat.catnis
Directed by: Daniel Gurton @danielgurton
Producer: Harriet Thomas @harrietsthomas
Executive Producers: Daniel Gurton @claraproductions , Jana Suhani Soin @janasuhanisoin
Cinematographer: Henry Gill @thehengrygill
Music: Ben Nobuto @__nobuto__
Editors: Sakky Barnor @sakky_cuts , Emilie Orsini @emilie_orsini
Sound Designer: Rob Owens @potionsoundworks
Choreography: Kwame Asafo-Adjei @spoken_movement
Gaffer: Mary Kalecinska @Mary___kale
Camera Operator : Alex Kryszkiewicz @steadi.k
Focus Puller : Gordon Wong @gordon.wsh_
Rigger : Dylan Schultz-Soo @dylansschultz
Spark: Breandan McBennett
Sound Mixer: @gldemm
Post: RASCAL @rascalstudio_
Colourist : Dan Levy @danmaxlevy
Senior Colour Producer: Jai Mhach Durban @jaimhachdurban
Title Design: Studio Matthew Roland Bannister @matthewrolandbannister
Runners : Ronita Awoonor-Gordon @ronitatemitayo , Daniel Ekunwe @daniel.ekunwe
Cellists: Miki Piszczorowicz @_miksoon
Camera Systems: Emmyland @emmyland
Lighting: Blundell Studios @blundellstudios
In a British-Ghanaian household bound by tradition and religion, a young girl lives under the oppressive control of her abusive father. At the family dinner table, heated arguments reveal the deep rift between them as they confront the scars of their shared history.
I'm Here
Canada
Director: Vickie Grondin @vickie.gr
Director of photography: Carl Beauchemin @couarl
Choreographer and performer: Sovann Rochon-Prom Tep @sovannpromo
Composer: Guillaume Rémus
Music collaboration: Laurent Ta
Sound design and mix: Mathieu Grégoire
Costumes: Miss Dress Up Éco @missdressupeco
Costumes counsel: Dave St-Pierre
Editing: Vickie Grondin
VFX and color grading: Carl Beauchemin
Foley: Karla Baumgardner
Foley recording: Services audiovisuels Wolfstag @wolfstagav
Production assistants: Alphiya Joncas @alphiyajoncas , Nicolas Denicourt, Mathilde Lytwynuk
Script counselor: Catherine Duchesneau
Camera equipment: Royal Photo
During his daily picking, Bo has a moving encounter that reveals other existences to him.
A hybrid story between a narrative and dance short film questioning our relationship with the living.
Kucha
China
Director: Chenglong TANG
Dancer, Choreographer: Gulmira Mamat
Kucha, an ancient oasis city dating back to the 3rd century BCE in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, China, was a significant cultural crossroad of the Silk Road, renowned for its Buddhist heritage and distinctive music and dance.
Looking back at Kucha, the short film reveals a mysterious dream, a curious exploration, or, maybe a philosophical conversation that transcends time and space.
Drawing from Chinese ancient literature and historical and archaeological records of the Kuchean dance, Kucha adapts the artistic imagery from the murals of the Kizil and Kumtura Caves in Xinjiang as the foundation for its dance movements.
While restoring the music style, dance postures, makeup, costumes, and props, it incorporates contemporary aesthetics and innovative concepts with world dance elements.
Passing By
United States
Choreographed and Directed by: Terez Dean Orr @Tdeanboom
Performed by: Tess Lane @funsizetessia, John Speed Orr @speedorr
Filmed by: Elliott Bastien Morin @3motion_creator
Edited by: John Speed Orr @speedorr
Coloring: Alex Wakefield @alexphamwakefield
Costumes: Tess Lane @funsizetessia
Set Design: Ben Lacy @bdml518
Music by: Papooz @papoozband
Produced by: Jettison Creative @jettison_creative
“Passing By” is a playful exploration of the human “body” and memory. With time, the idea of “home” becomes deeply rooted; the comfort of what we know, a physical environment that settles, and the simple pleasure of discoveries. “Passing By” brings a snapshot into focus without the constraints of linear time. Past, present, and future blend, as they do in our physical space with human emotions and memories. Our two characters play in these worlds, whether in dreams or reality. As concrete as the geography they inhabit, or ephemeral as a passing dream, their shared experience conjures the notion of “home”.
Maldonne
France
Directors: Leïla Ka @ka_leila & Josselin Carré @josselincarre
Director of Photography: Jordane Chouzenoux
Original idea & choreographer: Leïla Ka @ka__leila
Dancers: Aïda Ben Hassine @aidabenh – Océane Crouzier @ocecrz – Jane Fournier Dumet @janefournierdumet – Mat Iéva @mat.ieva – Leïla Ka @ka__leila – Zoé Lakhnati @zoelakhnati – Carmel Loanga @carmelloanga – Jade Logmo @jl_ogmo – Mathilde Roussin @mathilde_roussin_ – Anna Tierney @annatierney – Nao Tozawa @aerstix_naokotozawa
Original soundtrack: Alexis Delong @felis_catusss with the participation of Zaho de Sagazan @zahodesagazan & Pierre Cheguillaume
Production: Naïa Productions @naiaproductions Séverine Lathuillière @sevnaia
Production manager: Amélie Transler @amelietsl
Sound: Marie-Clotilde Chery
Image editing: Leïla Ka & Josselin Carré
Sound editing: Raphaël Mouterde
Sound mixer: François Gueurce
Eleven women and their gaze, each wearing a flowery dress and a buried sorrow linked to her condition as a woman. Together, and without words, they take up the challenge of freeing themselves. A collective revolt begins. With positive rage.