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Poetic, riveting and moving, Argentina explores the heart of traditional Argentine folklore and its stunning musical heritage - from traditional styles such as the Zamba of "La Felipe Varela" through to modern dance - as choreographed by critically-acclaimed Carlos Saura.
DVD (Spanish with English Subtitles) / 2015 / () / 85 minutes
Step inside the halls of five NYC public schools and celebrate dance! Hosted by veteran TV journalist Paula Zahn, PS Dance! is the documentary that captures what happens when students add dance to their daily studies. The journey is one of imagination, curiosity, hard work and discipline. In these studios dance is for every child.
Filmed over four years, Ballet Boys follows the victories, trials, and set-backs of three friends and rising Dutch dance stars: Lukas, Syvert, and Torgeir. They sacrifice a normal high school experience including parties and dating for the sake of ambition and a love of dance. Facing pressure from their parents, school teachers and ballet mentors, the boys prepare for potentially life-altering and career-making auditions at some of Europe's most prestigious ballet schools.
DVD (Norwegian with English Subtitles) / 2014 / () / 72 minutes
What is life like for a dancer when they can no longer dance? Inspired by Merrill Ashley's departure from the New York City Ballet as an acclaimed principal dancer, this documentary, created by Ron Steinman and Eileen Douglas, captures the poignancy of this life turning point. After a struggle to find her next step, today Merrill Ashley travels around the world teaching Balanchine to dance companies which perform his works as once she did. This is the story of any dancer - or, in truth any one of us - who needs to find their way into a new life.
Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter tells the inspiring and largely unknown story of Martha Hill, a woman whose life was defined by her love for dance, and who successfully fought against great odds to establish dance as a legitimate art form in America.
Through archival footage, lively interviews with friends and intimates, and rare footage of the spirited subject, the film explores Hills's arduous path from a Bible Belt childhood in Ohio to the halls of academia at NYU and Bennington College, to a position of power and influence as Juilliard's founding director of dance (1952-1985). Peppered with anecdotal material delivered by dance notables who knew her, this revelatory story depicts her struggles and successes, the film is a celebration of dance and an examination of the passion required to keep it alive.
Secundaria quietly follows one high school class over a three-year period on its journey through Cuba's world famous National Ballet School. Our teenage dancers love to dance, but many of them must dance as their sole way out of poverty and the constraints- both visible and invisible- that shape life in Cuba.
DVD (Spanish with English Subtitles) / 2014 / () / 96 minutes
Cuban identical triplets Angel, Cesar and Marcos are top young students at Cuba's world-famous National Ballet School. To Dance Like a Man follows them as they are poised to begin their dancing careers.
Filmmaker Sylvie Collier was granted extraordinary, unlimited access to the school, and backstage at the Grand Theatre, allowing her to film the boys as they train in the robust and expressive style that distinguishes Cuban ballet. Her film provides a child's eye view on determination and the hunger for success, within in the context of contemporary Cuba, a country with an outsize international role in arts and culture.
DVD (Spanish with English subtitles) / 2012 / () / 58 minutes
TuTu MUCH follows nine young ballet dancers as they plie, pirouette and compete for highly-coveted spots in an intensive four-week professional ballet summer program at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. Leaving behind their families and friends, often for the first time, each girl confronts the painstaking and sometimes rewarding realities of pursuing her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer.
The daily classes are grueling tests of their physical stamina and emotional grit. "You've even got to love the pain," says twelve-year-old Sidnie, one of the prospective ballerinas. As the girls learn during the course of the auditions, talent and passion alone do not guarantee success: the success of a dancer often comes down to the shape of a foot or the length of the neck. In the last few days of the program the girls find out which of them will take the next step toward the dream of becoming a professional ballerina, and which ones won't.
Legendary dancers and choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Suzanne Farrell, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison and Bill Irwin appear alongside new innovators to reveal the passion, discipline, and daring of the world of dance in Never Stand Still. Filmed at the iconic Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, this thrilling documentary features amazing performances by world-renowned dancers interwoven with intimate interviews, behind-the-scenes insights, and rare archival footage.
Founded in the 1930s by visionary dance pioneer Ted Shawn on a farm in the Berkshires, today the Pillow is an idyllic mecca for artists and audiences from around the world, a place where dance in all its forms - from ballet to jazz to contemporary - is studied, created, performed and celebrated.
Like Wim Wenders's Pina, Never Stand Still immerses us in the lives of extraordinary artists and the power of dance.
World famous dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch selected 40 teenagers who had never heard her name to be part of her dance piece Contact Zone. For 10 months through opening night, the young dancers discover Bausch's genius and their own bodies. Pina Bausch died in 2009; a sensation at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, Dancing Dreams is a testament to Bausch's revolutionary work.
A feature documentary which chronicles the intimate and triumphant story of Sokvannara Sar who was discovered by Anne Bass on a trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, in 2000 and brought to the ballet stage in America.
A longtime patron of dance in the U.S., Bass arranged for Sy to visit New York and audition for the prestigious School of the American Ballet (SAB). What unfolds in Dancing Across Borders is a tentative negotiation between Sy and the world of American ballet and culture-from the serene countryside of Southeast Asia to the halls of SAB, to the stage of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. The film follows Sy's unusual development as a dancer and offers a remarkable behind-the-scenes look into the world of American ballet. At its heart, Dancing Across Borders is an extraordinary story of growth, adaptation, and belonging as well as of the development of talent and the mastery of an art form.
An intoxicating mix of private thoughts and public behavior, the feature length documentary A Wink and a Smile exposes more than the human body by putting gender, power, sexuality and social identity under the glittery spotlight, as it follows the lives of ten "ordinary" women who do something extraordinary - learn the art burlesque dancing and striptease.
Students of Seattle's Academy of Burlesque have just six weeks to peel and reveal their hidden talents with little more than a tassel and a twirl. Seasoned burlesque divas strut on stage in their own entertaining, satirical and beautiful performances to illustrate the candid and often hilarious lectures by the Academy1s headmistress, Miss Indigo Blue.
As director Deirdre Timmons draws back the velvet curtain providing a rare glimpse into the intimate experience, audiences watch with glee as Miss Indigo's budding divas learn to shimmy, shake, bump and grind their way into our hearts. Through their adventures, we see how a homemaker, a reporter, a doctor, an opera singer, a taxidermist and a college student, join the American cultural revival of burlesque, as it moves from fringe fascination to mainstream obsession, engaging a world where performance art and showgirl spectacle, music, theater and sensuality crash into over-the-top glamour - a world where many want to go, but very few dare.
In the grand tradition of the Ballet Russes comes Bertrand Normand's portrait of five Russian ballerinas from the Mariinski Theatre, formerly known as the Kirov. Behind any great ballerina lies the discipline and rigour that comes from decades of training and practice; and Russia's pre-eminent dancers - superstars such as Nijinsky, Baryshnikov and Pavlova - established the reputation of Russian dancers as the best in the world. The dancers profiled in Ballerina are uniquely individual - tough, insightful and exceptionally talented; onstage they reveal no hint of the sweat, pain and hard work of the rehearsal studio. From Swan Lake to Romeo and Juliet, from the backstage studio to performing on stages around the world, Ballerina captures the sublime beauty of ballet, in all its resplendent glory.
DVD (English, French, With English Subtitles) / 2006 / () / 80 minutes
"I'M GOING TO DANCE, DANCE, DANCE 'TIL I CAN'T DANCE NO MORE!"- Bertye Lou Wood (age 96)
Meet the Silver Belles, five tap dancers who performed in 1930's Harlem at the famed Apollo and Cotton Club, with legendary band leaders like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. They have rich stories to tell about the history they made during the Harlem Renaissance, illuminated by a treasure trove of archival film and photos. Together again, after a few decades hiatus, they're dancing to standing ovations - as sassy as they ever were!
This joyful documentary celebrates two giants of the dance and theatrical worlds: dancer/choreographer/actress Carmen De Lavallade and multi-hyphenate Geoffrey Holder, married to each other for nearly fifty years. Wife-husband team Atkinson (a student of Carmen's) and Doob (Academy Award-winner for From Mao to Mozart) capture the intimate chemistry between quietly brilliant Carmen and larger-than-life Geoffrey, whose credits include his legendary production of The Wiz.
DVD (Color / Black and White) / 2006 / () / 80 minutes
Set against the backdrop of the magical White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Sacred Stage features the best in Russian symphonic music, ballet and opera at Russia's premier theater-the Mariinsky, also known as the Kirov. Sacred Stage explores what the theater has meant to Russian and Soviet culture and how it has somehow maintained its artistic excellence through war, revolution and the collapse of Communism.. It also looks at the life and work of Maestro Valery Gergiev, artistic and theater director at the Mariinsky, and captures the excitement of his world-a world populated with artists, socialites, financiers, politicians and celebrities.
Narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Thomas, Sacred Stage is illustrated with stunning performances from the opera and ballet, as well as candid interviews with luminaries, scholars and performers.
Powerhouse creative forces unite, and sparks fly, in Mirra Bank's award-winning Last Dance. Bank follows the dazzling Pilobolus Dance Theater and legendary author-illustrator, Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) as they collaborate on the dance-theater work that honors a haunting holocaust legacy. Last Dance weaves rehearsal footage, probing interviews, chilling Nazi propaganda footage and breathtaking performance into a thrilling insight into the creative process.
The film holds nothing back as philosophies clash, confrontations abound, and artistic disaster threatens at every turn. But in the end we are rewarded as Pilobolus dancers - pure bolts of force and grace - give life to a stark and stunning dancework.
Director: Nils Tavernier
Etoiles celebrates the legacy of the famed Paris Opera Ballet by weaving together rehearsals and tour snapshots of classical ballets as well as contemporary works.
Celebrated filmmaker Nils Tavernier delves into the psychology of dance by talking candidly with some of the biggest stars in dance today, who give perspectives on how and why they endure the emotional and physical hardships of the drive to be on stage.
Dance for Camera presents six films that are among the most outstanding examples of a new film genre that merges dance and film. Selected from festivals in Europe and North America, and winners of over 17 international awards, these films present an array of humor, drama, beauty and rhythm not usually seen on film or stage made by young emerging artists from around the world.
Films Include:
Reines d'un Jour, Switzerland, 26 minutes
Choreographer: Marie Nespolo, Christine Kung; Director: Pascal Magnin
Measure, United States, 7 minutes
Choreographer: Dayna Hanson; Directors: Gaelen Hanson and Danya Hanson
Rest in Peace, UK & Netherlands, 9 minutes
Choreographer: Hans Hof Ensemble; Director: Annick Vroom; Producer: Rodney Wilson
A Village Trilogy, Canada, 24 minutes
Choreographer and Director: Laura Taler
Cornered, Canada, 5 minutes
Producer/director/choreographer: Michael Downing
From a Butoh-inspired portrait of a demented aristocrat (The Duchess), to a sensual bedroom metamorphosis (Horses Never Lie) to an intimate moment interrupted by a burst water pipe (Burst), this latest collection of award-winning dance films from around the world will "bewitch, bedazzle and bewilder!" (Deirdre Towers, Dance on Camera Festival Director).
Includes the films:
~ Boy (UK)
~ Burst (Iceland)
~ Cargo (Canada)
~ Case Studies from the Groat Center for Sleep Disorders (US)
~ Horses Never Lie
~ (Canada)
~ Motion Control (UK)
~ The Duchess (US)
The Dancer follows the young and gifted Katja Bjorner through years of intensive training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School as she develops into an international ballet star. Filmed with an eye toward conveying the physical aspects of dancing - the pain, sweat, and tears, as well as the exquisite beauty - The Dancer captures the fierce determination and struggle that goes into the desire to dance at the highest level.
DVD (Color, With English Subtitles) / / () / 96 minutes