Stay Home Screendance Picks

October 2nd - October 11th

We put out the call, and the artists responded. During a time of uncertainty, groundlessness, and fear these 24 artists did what they do best: create! Each of the dance films were created while sheltering in place during the Spring and Summer of 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. With access to crew, location, and equipment greatly limited, often these artists are some combination of Director, Choreographer, Dancer, Cinematographer, and Editor all at once. All films are under 5 minutes and vary greatly in tone and approach. 
Stay Home Screendance films are free to view for the entire duration of the festival (October 2nd – 11th). Join us in voting for your favorite! The top rated film will get $200.

FREE! Watch and Vote

UNITED STATES

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Film by Alexa Velez

“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” is a performance for the camera that channels the anxiety that arises from having to make a difficult decision. Like a ship lost at sea, we tend to travel nowhere while navigating indecision. As with the rise and fall of the ocean, we sway back and forth until we find solid ground.

Instagram: @jinx.lex

United States, featuring dancers across mainland USA, Puerto Rico, and Indonesia

Bodies Apart, Moving Together

Film by Sophia Wright Emigh

This collective short dance film expresses the human longing to connect in solidarity through the profound initiatory experience of this pandemic, which both pushes us apart and unites us, and reveals the ways we may have separated ourselves from each other long before we physically needed to do so. Through footage spliced together from the submissions of 20 international dancers, we see grief, trust, fear, control and surrender pouring through still and moving bodies cut off from physical touch, yet instinctively reaching towards each other through the unknown and across space and time to meet in the human experience.

Instagram: @sophiasees

Israel

Can you count to 100?

Film by Daphna Mero

Suddenly with no warning we were prisoners in our homes restricted to walk not far than 100 meters from our front doors. The count of ill and dead began, and it increases every day. We are globally under Siege of the Corona Epidemic’s. I am dancing on the roof. Up there under the sky, where open landscape view meets the hard cement, birds fly freely. I try to fly with them restricted by the banister that prevents me from falling. I am counting from 1 to 100. My voice dictates the flow and rhythm. My movements are limited to 100, it ends there.

UNITED STATES

Day 27

Film by Charli Brissey
A dancer grapples with quarantine through whimsical animated daydreaming

Instagram: @charliisananimal

UNITED STATES 

Shelter in Place 2

Film by Peter Litwinowicz and Lizz Roman

Lizz Roman & Dancers have been keeping connected through dance and film. Please enjoy this second installment of the Lizz Roman & Dancers’ Shelter in Place series

Instagram: @petelitwinowicz

Israel

Frida

Film by Tal Kronkop
Frida, my 92-year-old grandma, going through her daily choreography, opening up the windows.
Instagram: @tkronkop

UNITED STATES featuring dancers in SPAIN, JAPAN, and ARGENTINA

Hand2Hand

Film by Laura Cohen
Created during the first two months of quarantine in the Bay Area, this experimental dance film attempts to process the turmoil of surviving a pandemic. Featuring QT/BIPOC performers from all over the USA as well as Spain, Argentina, and Japan. 

Instagram: @locoohnono

Mexico

Isolated Birthday

Film by Rosa Villanueva

Isolated birthday is a piece that I created in the global pandemic context as an act of resistance and also a way to celebrate my birthday under such underwhelming circumstances. In this piece I allow myself to explore the vulnerability around such idealistic date, one’s birthday is. Also, the elements that I integrated are intended to generate a festive atmosphere in contrast to the sad character in the space, that therefore generate a confusing state. In terms of movement, notions such as contrast, vulnerability and solitude are key to my exploration.

Instagram: @undsiebewegtsich

United States

Life: Plastic Wrapped

Film by Sasha Chudacoff
“Only we humans make waste that nature can’t digest.” – Charles Moore . Life: Plastic Wrapped is film by Sasha Chudacoff in collaboration with other interdisciplinary artists. It was filmed and edited during 2020 Quarantine. Did you know plastics are making a HUGE comeback due to covid-19? The increase of plastic production and waste has been directly effected by this global pandemic.” I am a head in a plastic bag (for sasha)” was written by a poet and collaborator, Haley White in relation to my obsession with our plastic problem.Taking ownership of my own participation in our plastic world and climate catastrophe has allowed me to contemplate these issues on a deeper level. If the earth body is crisis, our human bodies are in crisis. What are the connections of our own Neuroplasticity (ability for human brain to change and rewire itself) and the earths plasticity (ability to change form)? This is now where I now stay with the trouble of plastic in all its metaphors in our modern times. What are the regenerative healing practices to engage for ourselves and for the earth?
Instagram:@sashachudacoff

Scotland, United Kingdom

LIGHTBOX

Film by Jamiel Laurence
The second in a series of Isolation Miniatures created by Jamiel Laurence while in lockdown during the Covid19 pandemic of 2020, LIGHTBOX was Shot in Jamiel & Constance’s own living room, on a 2m x 2m piece of harlequin floor. The choreography pushes back against the claustrophobic choreographic challenge on both the dancer and the camera movement, seeking to use the two in combination to break through the restrictions of creating and producing work in one’s own living space. The dancer is at times drawn to the light, and at others trapped by it as we crescendo in pace and rhythm, Finishing teetering on the edge. As a mobile filmmaker, Jamiel shot the work on iPhone and used app-controlled LED bulbs and strips found around his home, creating the atmospheric strobing and lighting devices driving the choreography forwards. WARNING — Contains Flashing Images

Instagram: @jamiellaurence

Indonesia

Morning Coffee

Film by Deny Ardianto

Covid 19 depresses everyone. Space becomes limited, houses run out of food, boredom and tension cannot be escaped from. But everyone seeks to stay sane, in their own way.

Instagram: @d.t.ardianto

United States

Passing the Time

Film by Laura Kennedy
Passing the Time explores the experiences of confinement and monotony that characterized my first two weeks of physical distancing. The movement is staged around a simple couch contained in an unmoving frame. To represent feelings of monotony, Passing the Time begins with a series of still postures that release weight into the couch. These weighted postures are sprinkled throughout the piece to capture the dreariness of spending day after day in the same place. I also choreographed a number of repeating phrases, many of which are sped up, slowed, or retrograded throughout the work. Much like the monotony of the still postures, these repeating phrases embody the tedium of living a day-to-day existence. Lastly, Passing the Time acknowledges the conditions of art creation during a period of limited access to resources. The work was filmed with a laptop camera, reflecting the possibilities of creating with only simple resources available on hand.

United States

quiet time, these are toes

Film by Jana Zahler
Mundane yet whimsical, quirky and sensational, “quite time, these are toes” shares a moment of introspection through a solo journey in a bathrobe. Moving through a odd yet tender inner world, this film takes place inside of a bathroom in northeast Portland, Oregon, during the months of Shelter-In-Place in the Spring of 2020.

Instagram: @soulwakedance

United States

SOCIAL DANCE-STANCING

Film by Kelsey Oluk + Keva Walker

Filmed and edited in April 2020 under Stay at Home orders in LA, SOCIAL DANCE-STANCING is a playful take on the 6 feet social distance rule. The short is an experiment to see what a duet could look like when you can’t actually be together. How can we come together in dance, and collaborate during a mandated isolation period. Join us in a dance battle for personal space, and please, don’t stand so close to me!

Instagram: @fossewalks

Finland

Solitude

Film by Hanna Ojala
Recorded in the laundry room of our appartment building during the quarantine.

France

Stay Ohm

Film by Fu Le
“Everything collapsed. We only treasured the chaos of the nature, its madness.” (Marguerite Duras)
Instagram: @cie.tetrapode

United States

Telekinetic Waters

Film by Terri Ayanna Wright

Telekinetic Waters is a short dance film where a young woman, distraught after hearing the news of COVID-19, receives solace from an unusual visitor. The film was directed, choreographed, performed, and edited by Terri Ayanna Wright, grad student and professional dancer based in NYC, while in quarantine in New Orleans.

Instagram: @wrightitwithdance

Finland

The Minute You Panic

Film by Hanna Ojala
Recorded in the laundry room of our appartment building during the quarantine.

United States

THREATENED> THREATENING

Film by Emma Colton
This film was created in response to the rising number of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans at the beginning of the pandemic. At the time, I had sensed a lack of support from activists, artists and friends. I wanted to use my voice to increase public awareness. Despite our physical isolation, this piece allowed me to bring my community together, in support of Asians in our country.
Instagram: @emcol10

Germany

Transcending

Film by Jill Bettendorff

Setting the stage in an abandoned attic, during the lockdown in Berlin in times of isolation & solitude Jill dives into introspection, attempting to purify herself and transcending to a space of calmness and inner peace.

Instagram: @jillbettendorff

Madrid, Spain

TRNDSTTR

Film by Alberto López
Technology has invaded our lives on a daily basis. We have been absent from our real lives and from the people around us. We have lost touch with our loved ones. We need your attention to focus on what is truly important. To talk, to know each other, to share things together. The advancement of society is inclining us to be solitary in a digital world, to have online relationships, to chat and not make calls. We currently have no physical need to meet someone real. We have to be aware of valuing more what you have in reality than in digital. The house reflects the home to which we must always go when we need to return to our origins.
Instagram:@alogafilms

United States

Virtually Talented

Film by Tony Palomino
It started as a planned entry into the Reed College talent show, scheduled for Friday, March 13th, 2020. The title of the piece was “Allen has the talent and Tony has the taps”. Physical distancing guidelines went into place, and the event was cancelled. Allen and Tony gave up. Then, they ungave up and met for an hour on a Sunday afternoon to see what could be done virtually. Then, they gave up again. Finally, after ungiving up one last time, something emerged. Virtually Talented is a heartwarming tale of two friends, bound by talent, struggling to maintain a cross-generational friendship and a stable Internet connection. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll furrow your brow at the low production value. Then, a little more crying probably for a different reason.
Instagram: @mrtonytinyfeet

United States

Warped: Covid Time

Film by Sasha Chudacoff

How does time get warped? During Covid Quarantine 2020, I experienced an altered perspective of time. Many others reported the same thing. Time blurred and warped. The daily and weekly landmarks that I was accustomed to before quarantine were no longer pillars. Time became improvised, spontaneous, memorable and simultaneously inconsequential. It was based on creative adaptations to a new way of living and this new way of living for many of us had no time signature or familiar rhythm. One night in the life of quarantine, in the small rural Mountain town where I live, there was a full moon. With all businesses closed, town empty and time warped, I danced in the empty streets in the light of the moon.

United States

Love Without a Glove

Film by Desi Jevon

Wash your hands my friends…

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