Apollo’s Girl

Dance on Camera 45
Film Society of LIncoln Center

With its world view and multiple techniques, Dance on Camera offers features that point up what dance carries with it: a brief and passionate professional life shadowed by injuries, frustrations, offset by fleeting moments of sublime control over space and the body before it’s gone forever. Not for the faint of heart! http://www.dancefilms.org/dance-on-camera/festival/.
http://www.filmlinc.org/festivals/dance-on-camera-festival/#films

This year’s features showcased Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer—Marcelo Gomes—a brilliant example who, at 37 and the top of his game, reveals the ubiquitous pain and suffering that come with his calling. Because he’s a first-rate dancer and also a sympathetic personality, you come away from the finale wishing, for his sake, that time could be stopped in its tracks. Until then, enjoy watching him defy gravity and partner a trio of spectacular leading ladies.

Then there’s Queen of Thursdays. It begins with a quote from Albert Camus from The Myth of Sisyphus http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm, and introduces us to Rosario Suarez who studied with Alicia Alonso in Cuba at 15 and became a star of the Cuban ballet. If Alonso’s career was a colossal battle against blindness, Suarez’ was, like the mythological hero’s, a long, cruel journey of geography and intrigue which she repeatedly won and lost. After the skirmish that ends the film, Suarez says that she can tell a lie, “That I want to go on,” or the truth, “That I will go on.”

From Sweden, Marie’s Attitude follows the graceful transformation of Marie Lindquist from prima ballerina to rehearsal director. She muses on how to end her career after dancing Eugene Onegin; her finale receives an ovation on a stage buried in flowers, and she is embraced by the entire company. In a postlude, she teaches Swan Lake, dressed in sweat pants and top. But when she demonstrates its essential steps, you see the Queen turning and taking to the air, inspiring her accolytes.

The shorts were, as they often are, both far-ranging and imaginative. Among the outstanding entries, two were filmed in the snow: Broken Memory, an exquisite piece choreographed and danced barefoot on a rooftop by the stunning Miki Orihara and directed, filmed and edited by Tomoko Mikanagi, whose understanding of how to film dance deserves a film of its own. The second, Cold Storage, a kind of bro-dance on ice by Thomas Freundlich, manages broad humor (often missing in dance) to advantage. Lost in the Shuffle (by Simon Maurice) features dance and activist Jason Samuels Smith holding forth on the African origins of tap and its importance to the children (and adults) determined to follow his feet to confidence. His struggle to keep his school and classes going on a shoestring is as interesting to watch as his combinations. And if you want 15 minutes of real fun, watch Joaquin Roche (“El Oso”) Rodriguez. He’s a Cuban who’s been dancing in the streets for decades and has loved every minute of it. His star Casino dancing turn in Wheel of Life will lift your spirits, and he’s not planning to quit swiveling his hips anytime soon. But Exquisite Corps (by Thomas Rose) kind of takes this year’s choreographic and cinematic cake. It’s continuous movement by 42 (count ’em!) A-list dance-makers, each of whom leaps, twirls, shakes and thrashes without pause to create one filmed dance. And each mover and shaker is recorded in a different location. Exhilarating? Yes. Original? Yes. Hypnotic? Definitely. And here it is:
Go for it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3pFxsYPLgU

 

Tags: ballerinas, filmed dance, imaginative film, male dancers