For two hundred years, the Shakers have been America's most successful utopian society. While seeking harmony, order and perfection in every aspect of their lives, they built minimalistic furniture and buildings that influenced modern design. The Shakers wrote songs of exquisite beauty and danced to the point of ecstasy during their religious meetings. Inspired by this music and dance, choreographer Tero Saarinen created Borrowed Light, a dance piece about communal life and individual sacrifice. Shot in Finland and the United States, featuring interviews and excerpts from Borrowed Light, this documentary explore the cultural legacy of this religious group devoted to creating heaven on earth.
A love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman's fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.
Alone, Eva Fahidi returned home to Hungary after WWII. At 20 years of age, she had survived Auschwitz Birkenau, while 49 members of her family were murdered, including her mother, father, and little sister. Today, at age 90, Eva is asked to participate in a dance theatre performance about her life's journey. This would be her first experience performing on a stage. Reka, the director, imagines a duet between Eva and a young, internationally acclaimed dancer, Emese. Reka wants to see these two women, young and old, interact on stage, to see how their bodies, and stories, can intertwine. Eva agrees immediately. Three women - three months - a story of crossing boundaries. Whilst the extraordinary moments of Eva's life are distilled into theater scenes, a truly wonderful and powerful relationship forms among the three women.
A portrait of the day-to-day operations of the National Gallery of London, that reveals the role of the employees and the experiences of the Gallery's visitors. The film portrays the role of the curators and conservators; the education, scientific, and conservation departments; and the audience of all kinds of people who come to experience it.
Dance for All
In this documentary, Argentinians dance to their favourite hits.
Movie and stage icon Debbie Reynolds hosts the making of "Singin' in the Rain". The short documentary includes Donald O'Connor, who played the comical "Cosmo Brown", Stanley Donen, one half of the directors next to Gene Kelly, and Kathleen Freeman, who played Phoebe Dinsmore, Lina Lamont's (Jean Hagen) voice coach.
Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration.
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
Profile of famed dance director Busby Berkeley's career, in particular "The Gang's All Here"
Follows the plight of real-life dancers as they struggle through auditions for the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line and also investigates the history of the show and the creative minds behind the original and current incarnations.
Kristina, a self-named Hungarian female lion tamer, arrives in New York to become a dance choreographer. Kristina, now a middle-class NYC artist concerned about the environment, has a sailor lover named Raoul. The film, a collage work, an essay film, a fictional narrative and a documentary all rolled into one, is one of the most important independent American feminists films made during the 1970's.
Alexis, a talented and proud student of the National Ballet School of Cuba, spends his life practicing chassé and entrechats with his girlfriend and dance partner Yelenia. However, when his family moves to Florida to be reunited with his sister, he must adjust his expectations and dreams to a radically new environment. Alexis, facing rejection and homesick for his native Cuba, feels lost and alone. He must find his way in the world of American ballet while remaining faithful to his roots.
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.
Portrait of Lester Horton, a Los Angeles-based dancer, choreographer and teacher who trained many world-reknowned dancers and built the first American theater devoted permanently to dance. Former students and friends, including Bella Lewitzky, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade, help create a picture of Horton through interviews. Includes numerous dance excerpts.
During his thirty-year career, Walter Hus, a Belgian composer and pianist, has taken a thousand musical faces. While he wanted to compose a new work, a crisis blocked his creation. During an exchange with his therapist, he comes to an existential question: "Who am I musically? » Through the portrait of this composer, as abundant as it is fascinating, the film aims to give access to his creative process and thus to the endurance and beauty of creation.
Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.
The film presents thirteen rhythms of flamenco, each with song, guitar, and dance: the up-tempo bularías, a brooding farruca, an anguished martinete, and a satiric fandango de huelva. There are tangos, a taranta, alegrías, siguiriyas, soleás, a guajira of patrician women, a petenera about a sentence to death, villancicos, and a final rumba.
The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.
Anma (The Masseurs) is a representative and historical work by the creator of Butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata in his early period in the 1960s. The film is realized not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance, a term made by Iimura, that is meant to be a choreography of film. The filmmaker "performed" with a camera on the stage in front of the audience. With the main performers: Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the film has the highlights such as Butohs of a soldier by Hijikata & a mad woman by Ohno. There is a story of the mad woman, first outcast and ignored, at the end joins to the community through her dance. Inserted descriptions of Anma (The Masseurs) are made for the film by the filmmaker, but were not in the original Butoh. The film, the only document taken of the performance, must be seen for the understanding of Hijikata Butoh and the foundation of Butoh.