Ulyana Lopatkina in Ballerina, a film by Bertrand Norman.
Unsatisfied with Superstars of Dance? For a quick tour of the dance world without leaving your seat, check out the Dance Film Association’s Dance on Camera Festival beginning this week in New York City. Featuring over 30 films from South Africa, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea as well as the U.S., the festival renders intimate documentary portraits of performers, poetic meditations on movement and portals into the work of a variety of choreographers and dance styles.
Bertrand Normand's Ballerina goes behind the stage curtain to explore how some of the preeminent ballet dancers of our time have ascended the ranks of one of the most renowned and rigorous ballet companies in the world - the Mariinsky Ballet(formerly the Kirov). Through interviews and performance footage, the careers of Alina Somova, Svetlana Zakharova, Diana Vishneva, Ulyana Lopatkina and Evgenia Obraztsova are documented to explore the evolution of a ballerina’s life from young dancer on the threshold of a career to revered star.
Ballerina is shown with Gillian Lacey’s Play: On the beach with the Ballets Russes, a short featuring archival footage showing members of the famed troupe frolicking in the sand during the company’s vacation in Sidney, Australia.
Alla Kovgan and David Hinton offer a poetic meditation of dancer/choreographer Nora Chipaumire’s youth in Zimbabwe. Chipaumire, a member of Urban Bush Women and Bessie-award winner, grew up in Rodesia, and witnessed her country’s struggle for independence from Britain and subsequent rebirth as the nation of Zimbabwe.
Chunky Move’s Dance Like Your Old Man. Directed by Gideon Obarzanek and Edwina Throsby.
Filmmaker Hans Hulscher, a specialist in capturing dance and opera, collaborated for over thirty years to bring Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian and Nederlands Dans Theater’s productions to the screen. Four of these films will comprise a full evening program and feature such notable works as Wings of Wax and Petit Mort.
Of the many collaborations between dancer and director, VSPRS Show and Tell adapts performance in the documentary form with equal success. Filmmaker Sophie Fiennes captured Belgian choreographer Alain Platel and Les Ballets C de la B’s controversial interpretation of Monteverdi’s Maria Vespers, a revered work of European religious music, for her film. She interspersed glimpses of the performance with interviews of the creators for an absorbing representation of a work that was described by one critic as “the weirdest, most shocking and provocative performance you will ever see.”
The festival will also feature tributes to Busby Berkeley, Jerome Robbins and dancing dads (Chunky Move’s Dance Like Your Old Man). Many programs include a question and answer session with the filmmaker following the screening, panel discussions and film shorts. See the 2009 Dance on Camera Festival program for details.
-JO
The 2009 Dance on Camera festival runs Wednesday-Sunday, January 7-11 and Friday-Saturday, Jan. 16-17 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, West 65th St. between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway. (Note: Due to construction work taking place around Lincoln Center, access to the Walter Reade Theater is near Amsterdam Avenue.)
Single screening tickets are $7-$11 and series passes are $30-$40. For more information, call (212) 875-5600 or visit www.dancefilms.org
