Dabke Time

Bouger les cadres

Collection of archive breakdance footage

From Norman McLaren to the Grands Ballets Canadiens, to Igor Stravinsky and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Vincent Warren has made history. Inhabited by the importance of culture in a society, he worked all his life as a 'bearer of beauty'. A MAN OF DANCE is the story of this living legend and its memorable era.

Inspired by the wind in the grass, the song of birds, the tapestry of the forest, two bodies of water and natural erosion, two dancers and a filmmaker explore the beauty of the Memramcook valley.

La Salsa Vive is a vibrant cinematic exploration of Afro-Cuban music's history, tracing its roots from New York's lively streets to Cali, Colombia, now the global salsa capital.

A short documentary about dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig.

The documentary portrayed one of the most established dance companies in Hong Kong which has a history of over four decades. With a tradition of blending Chinese dance and ballet together in the training, the dance company has set sail to re-evaluate its artistic essence by adapting new physical disciplines and philosophy, picking up different cultural traces, meditation and Chinese martial arts. Through monologues of the company members, the film unveiled their fears, self-doubts, and findings in their quest to refine their dance forms and express their cultural roots. It's an uncertain journey towards the cultivation of inner peace and the essence of movement and stillness.

A Beqaa Valley refugee camp is seen through the eyes of Asma, an 11-year-old Syrian girl.

The portrait of an extraordinary French dancer-choreographer: Jean Babilée (1923-2014) is filmed at home, in the streets of Paris, at the Opera Garnier or at the Champs-Élysées Theater, “always caught, even in his kitchen, in full body work”.

Documentary without audio produced by deaf people. Music is depicted visually with the complete absence of musical instruments or voices. Directed by Makihara Eri and choreographer Dakei. With a diverse lineup including ordinary deaf people with zero acting experience and a choreographer who performs in Japan and abroad, this film pulls out all the tops to give visual expression to music through the physical body. An aging man uses multiple sign language poems to convey the four seasons, and a girl expresses the wind amidst the rustling trees.

Life in Progress

Vytvorila dedina - Tancuje mesto

Documentary short from the NFB Canada Carries On series on dancing from the different cultures in Canada.

This intimate ethnographic study of Voudoun dances and rituals was shot by Maya Deren during her years in Haiti (1947-1951); she never edited the footage, so this “finished” version was made by Teiji Ito and Cherel Ito after Deren’s death.

Instructed teaching of social dances for the new millennium in dancing school Urska in Ljubljana.

Slow, une histoire d'amour

A dance group rehearses for their latest performance Inabitáveis about black homosexuality. While the choreographer conducts research and gives guided tours, he meets Pedro, a young trans girl looking for her own means of expression. She desperately wants to be taught by him.

Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter tells the inspiring and largely unknown story of a woman whose life was defined by her love for dance. Martha Hill emerges as dance's secret weapon, someone who 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 academe 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, including the battle royal that accompanied her move to the Lincoln Center campus.

Joanna Is Skywalking

Severely battered from the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, Minerva passed away eight days later. Her son Joseph, while still grieving for his loss, sunk into a long and absurd bureaucratic path through the inept system that disowned his mother as a victim of the blast. Minerva is gone. The explosion has snatched her soul, and the city walls have not yet recognized her as a martyr. There is no poster of her smiling face among those of the victims. Their faces are memories that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps her son, devastated by her passing, seeks to etch her image into the city's memory. Perhaps he is seeking some confession to the crime. This is a place that casts out its children, whether dead or alive.