Salsa Lives

The Hamburg Ballet was one of the first ballet companies internationally to return to its studios after the first lockdown. The ballet Ghost Light by John Neumeier deals with isolation and the feelings and fantasies an empty stage may evoke. Developed in fragments using small groups of dancers and under the constraints imposed by Covid-19, the choreography reflects situations, fears, relationships, memories, and emotions experienced during the pandemic.

As an ode to her grandfather, choreographer Daria Titova returns to the rural land he cherished in Sokur, Russia. Through movement and evocative visual language, she explores memory, family heritage, and a sense of belonging — inviting the audience to reconnect with their own roots.

Moments of a group of high school students at a party, before the college admission tests start.

With her dream of pursuing a professional dance career shattered, Nizzy, an upscale British Pakistani, must now fight the odds to keep it alive in a society she never wanted to be a part of.

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

Serpentine dance with stenciled rainbow coloring, in the style of Fuller. Dancer unidentified. Pathé film no. 766a.

Global soccer hero Thierry Henry stars in this up-close sports documentary that covers his 2010 move from Barcelona to the New York Red Bulls.

A feature-length film about the life, work, influence and impact of California-based choreographer/Arts Activist Bella Lewitzky. Described as "...one of the greatest American dancers of our age," (Walter Terry) Bella Lewitzky was a talented, strong, out-spoken artist, who dedicated her creative life to protect the rights of every American citizen.

Seemayer Studios presents a new documentary about the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and the Arts District that surrounds it. Since 1979, the American Hotel has been the beating heart of a rich community of artists who began moving into the deserted factory buildings between Alameda and the Los Angeles River.

Repetition is an illusion. Everything is always new. Legendary street dancer DeRay and spoken-word poet and battle rapper Naima explore a powerful love built on recognition and trauma that contains both the potential for inspiration and destruction. Take an electrifying journey through the vibrant and impressionistic experience of their relationship to each other and through their own creative personal voyages in this hip-hop fantasia that opens a door into the choices we all make in our lives.

An afternoon and evening spent with Raymond Fernez, who walks at the speed of a Stegosaurus and feels the heartbeat of a divine emotion otherwise known as The Blues...

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

Traces the life and mental illness of New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff, and her sister's struggle to come to terms with her tragic suicide.

A tale about the search for new sensorial experiences and territories. It’s a teaching and learning experience through body exploration and manipulation: two strangers dance with their passion, desire, gestures and contact.

The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.

Santiago Mitre co-directs his first movement following The Student together with choreographer Onofri Barbato. Although it would have been more accurate to say “his first film-story-adventure-movie-great movie following The Student”, the word movement fits perfectly in Los posibles, the most overwhelmingly kinetic work Argentine cinema has delivered in many, many years. The film deals with the adaptation of a dance show directed by Onofri together with a group of teenagers who came to Casa La Salle, a center of social integration located in González Catán, trying to find some refuge from hardship. Already entitled Los posibles, the piece opened in the La Plata Tacec and was later staged in the AB Hall of the San Martín Cultural Center. Now, it dazzles audiences out of a film screen, with extraordinary muscles and a huge heart: Los posibles is a rhapsody of roughen bodies and torn emotions. Precise and exciting, it’s our own delayed, necessary, and incandescent West Side Story.

A funny, cruel exploration of the male psyche, Enter Achilles is set in a typical British pub, a shabby, nicotine-stained boozer. Pop songs tumble out of the jukebox, there is football on the TV, and the eight men lark around, pint glasses in hand. But their blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, for beneath the mateyness lurks a disturbing undercurrent of paranoia and insecurity, where weakness is brutally exploited and violence covers up vulnerability.

A documentary film that highlights two street derived dance styles, Clowning and Krumping, that came out of the low income neighborhoods of L.A.. Director David LaChapelle interviews each dance crew about how their unique dances evolved. A new and positive activity away from the drugs, guns, and gangs that ruled their neighborhood. A raw film about a growing sub-culture movements in America.

Marta Cardoso, a young dancer from northern Portugal, moves through Lisbon with restless energy, between precarious routines, affections, and a daily life in constant imbalance. Dance becomes her refuge and her cry: a space where the body finds freedom and instinct, and where gesture replaces words. When dancing, she feels close to her inner animal.

Released on DVD as part of The Criterion Collection's "Martha Graham: Dance on Film" collection.