Every weekend for six years, Jessica takes a bus from NYC, where she lives and works as a set decorator, to Boston, her hometown, where she cares for her dad, Aloysius, who is 87 and has advanced Alzheimer's disease.
From the rains of Japan, through threats of arrest for 'public indecency' in Canada, and a birthday tribute to her father in Detroit, this documentary follows Madonna on her 1990 'Blond Ambition' concert tour. Filmed in black and white, with the concert pieces in glittering MTV color, it is an intimate look at the work of the icon, from a prayer circle before each performance to bed games with the dance troupe afterwards.
Early Balkan footage.
In this Oscar Winning documentary short film, students in their final year at the National Ballet School of Canada are seen learning the flamenco from Susana and Antonio Robledo, who come to the school every winter to conduct classes which are held after the day's regular schedule has ended.
Savo from Kikinda (Serbia) and his brother recall how they called communal service few years back to empty the septic tank in their backyard. As careless servicemen weren't coming for days, Savo staged his death by drowning in the hole. Communal service sent three trucks while Savo was looking at them from the attic. A story of a small man who fought the system and won, only to become a huge YouTube hero afterwards.
Jürgen Leppert, also known as "Der Dreher" or "der Kreisel" is a graduate engineer, speaker inventor, 360 degree dancer, gifted Frisbee player and thoroughbred 68er. Everything revolves around the Karlsruher legend, and not just on the dance floor. A declaration of love to music, dancing and rebellion. A portrait of a tough person who still swims against the stream and the living proof that 81 years is far from too old for hard raves.
Award-winning choreographer Alexander Ekman dives into the subject of creativity by meeting scientists, professors, artists, film directors and choreographers, with the goal of trying to understand every aspect of the phenomenon.
A valuable testimony that approaches the essence of Nijinsky who did not leave a video. Boris Kochno, who was at the center of Russian ballet, vividly tells how Nijinsky, who had fallen ill, witnessed his newly choreographed self-made work. Nijinsky's successor machine is a rare record of transferring Nijinsky's appearance in the popular work "Afternoon of a Faun" to two great dancers, Grigorowich and Wasiriev, who carry Bolshoi ballet on their backs.
A multimedia performance including film, live narration and dance, How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? explores loss and transcendence experienced in human partnerships. Reflecting on his relationship with 102-year-old former sharecropper, carpenter and gardener Walter Carter as well as Andrei Tarkovsky’s science fiction classic, Solaris, Lemon and 6 dancers create a performance which arcs from turbulent physicality to restorative grace.
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Facundo Arteaga is a malambo dancer, who has already passed the barrier of thirties. His life is divided between work in the countryside and the care of his children. In spite of physical strain and lack of time, Facundo will try to compete again to try to get the title of national champion of malambo. According to tradition, whoever wins the championship can never compete again.
Actors from Warsaw's garden theatres dance a traditional Polish dance, cracovienne.
Documentary on the great American Ballerina Wendy Whelan
When he arrives in Saint Petersburg, at the age of 29, Marius Petipa is just an obscure dancer who fled western Europe to escape his debts. He is far from imagining that his engagement in the troupe of the Russian Imperial Ballet, then rather mediocre, will reveal him, forty years later, as one of the greatest choreographers in the history of dance. It is within the Bolshoi Kamenny theaters, then Mariinsky, in a still provincial capital where three productions a year are enough to satisfy an undemanding audience, that this native of Marseille will invent a new art of ballet, over the course of sixty of creations, between 1862 (La fille du pharaon) and 1895 (Le lac des cygnes).
How do humans and animals see each other? Dominique Loreau captures astonishing exchanges of “views” between people and animals who coexist in the city, in farms, slaughterhouses, zoos, museums, or in a dance rehearsal room. In The Eyes Of A Beast questions the permeable boundary between man and animal.
Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.
Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.
A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.
Prima ballerina Darcey Bussell talks about her life at the top. From tears at ballet school and forgetting the steps, to becoming the Royal Ballet's youngest-ever principal and her favourite roles, Darcey recalls her performing career from its earliest days.
Leon Gast's musical documentary reveals New York City's Latin culture and features live performances of salsa greats The Fania All Stars and The Spanish Speaking People of New York. A document of urban American Hispanic culture, Gast's film captures the rhythms of New York's Spanish Harlem, from illegal cockfights and Santeria rituals to the rooftops and backstreets of El Barrio and the legendary musicians performing at the Cheetah club.