(please feel free to forward far and wide)
**New dance film projects announced for the EMPAC DANCE MOViES
Commission 2007!**
Four projects have been selected by an international panel for this
year’s round of the EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. With awards
ranging from $7,000 to $42,000, the works represent the first
commissions given out through this new program.
The winning proposals include a poetic film based on the biography of
an African choreographer living in the US, who returns to dance her
story in Zimbabwe; a project from Argentina in which a group of
dance improvisers use a narrow hallway to create an elegant,
abstract, and lively piece of pure movement and form; a dance film
featuring US veterans who have recently returned from Iraq; and a
work combining the aesthetic of video surveillance in post-Soviet
Russia and the filmed movements of a contemporary Russian dancer.
The DANCE MOViES Commission is a program launched by EMPAC to support
the creation of new works in which dance meets the technologies of
the moving image. The Commission is supported by EMPAC’s Jaffe Fund
for Experimental Media and Performing Arts. It is open to artists
based in North and South America who are making video, film and
installation work.
As the first major commissioning program for dance film established
in the US, it is already having a significant national and
international impact, making the creation of new works possible, and
inspiring artists in the field to form new collaborations. This
year, the four projects chosen are all single-channel video works
which will premiere at EMPAC in the fall of 2008.
EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission 2007 Recipients (in alphabetical order
of titles):
- "Kino-Eye" directed by Joby Emmons, choreographed by Elena
Demyanenko (USA)
- "Nora Chipaumire: A Physical Biography" directed by Alla Kovgan and
David Hinton, choreographed by Nora Chipaumire with Souleymane
Badolo, soundscore by Thomas Mapfumo, produced by Joan Frosch (USA/
Zimbabwe)
- "Pasillo" created by David Farias, Carla Schillagi and Maria
Fernanda Vallejos (Argentina)
- "Soldier" directed/choreographed by Victoria Marks, directed by
Margaret Williams (USA/UK)
The selection panel consisted of Silvina Szperling (Argentina), Bob
Lockyer (UK), Gaelen Hanson (USA), Solange Farkas (Brazil), Hélène
Lesterlin, the dance curator at EMPAC, and Johannes Goebel, the
director of EMPAC.
See below, for the complete list of the 28 short-listed projects.
For panelists' bios and more info, please visit the EMPAC website:
empac.rpi.edu/commissions
Stats for 2007
Selected from 163 applications, of which 28 were short-listed, the 4
funded projects represent the first awards given out through this
inaugural round of the EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. In this year’s
pool, 82% of initial proposals came from the US, 10% from Canada, 4%
from Argentina, with artists also applying from Uruguay, Paraguay,
France and the UK. Three of the recipients are primarily US-based,
while one is from Argentina.
Background on the DANCE MOViES Commission
The works supported by the DANCE MOViES Commission are experimental
dance works for the screen which vary widely in content and form, yet
are united by the fact that they are crafted by a choreographer or
movement-based artist. EMPAC has shown films and videos of this kind
on the Rensselaer campus through its DANCE MOViES series over the
last two years.
DANCE MOViES Commissions may be narrative-based works, abstract
works, or may use tools such as computer processing, motion capture,
simulation, animation, image processing, and post-production
technologies, and some may even extend the confines of the single
screen to multiple screens or projections.
Currently, these commissions are funding awards only and do not have
a residency component. However, once the EMPAC building opens in the
fall of 2008, future commissioned artists may have access to EMPAC’s
spaces and technology to create their works as part of the Artist-in-
Residence program. The possibilities of how a dance film team could
use EMPAC’s facilities include use of EMPAC’s unique studio or
theater spaces, digital or theater technology, and professional video
and audio suites for editing, mixing and mastering.
The EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commissions are awarded through a competitive
open proposal process. The deadline for the next round is February 1,
2008. Applications will be available on the EMPAC website in the
fall. Questions: [log in to unmask]
More information on the DANCE MOViES Commission or EMPAC may be found
on the EMPAC website: empac.rpi.edu
About EMPAC
EMPAC—the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center—is a place
and a program where the arts challenge and alter our technology and
technology challenges and alters the arts. Founded by Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, EMPAC is an arts institution that draws
strength from being part of a great research university. It operates
nationally and internationally: attracting innovative artists, both
renowned and emerging, from around the world; offering artists,
researchers, and audiences opportunities that are available nowhere
else under a single roof; providing unsurpassed facilities for
creative exploration, and for research in fields such as
visualization and movement capture; sending new artworks onto the
global stage.
About Rensselaer
Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is one of America's
leading research universities, with a student body of 5,100
undergraduates, 1,800 graduate students in residential programs, and
2,800 students in distance programs and at Rensselaer at Hartford.
Rensselaer is known for providing an undergraduate education of
undisputed intellectual rigor based on exceptional pedagogical
innovation and has earned distinction in interactive learning and the
application of information technology to education. Faculty are
engaged in cutting-edge research in fields ranging from
microelectronics to computational modeling and simulation,
mathematical finance, advanced materials, environmental studies,
lighting, and electronic arts. Fostering technological
entrepreneurship, Rensselaer operates three business incubators, with
a technology park that is home to some fifty companies.
DANCE MOViES Commission 2007 Shortlisted proposals (in alphabetical
order of titles):
Contemporary Motion Studies
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, Melanie Aceto (Canada/USA)
curtain call
Goat Island (US)
EPISODE
John Jesurun, Neil Greenberg, Zeena Parkins (US)
Figured Ground
Eric Rosenzveig, Liz Gerring, Willy Le Maitre (Canada/US)
Gone (Remembering Where You Came From)
Kenneth Sherman, Noam Gagnon (Canada)
HOUSE OF D
Andrea Haenggi, Sergei Franklin, Mari Kimura (US)
Insuperable Resurgence
Pooh Kaye, John Kilgore (US)
Land Me Here
Troika Ranch (US)
MONSTRUITOS PORTEÑOS
Margarita Bali (Argentina)
Panoramas
Kwabena Slaughter (US)
Paroles Trouvées
Andrea Davidson, Dominique Besson (France/Canada)
Pater Noster
Daniel Conrad, Aszure Barton (Canada/US)
Perfect Surf
Jenny Rogers and Clove Galilee (US)
PRAIRIE FARM
Evann Siebens (Canada)
sand
Cari Ann Shim Sham* (US)
Strange Attractors
Kathleen Fitzgerald, Tom Pearson, Zach Morris (US)
The child of yours eyes
Javier Valdez (Paraguay)
The Emergent Improvisation Project (working title)
Susan Sgorbati, Elliot Caplan, Jake Meginsky (US)
The Fish Aria
Maria Kefirova, Olivier Baier (Canada)
The Garbage Pickers
Mauricio Wainrot, Allison Murray, Kathleen M. Smith (Argentina/Canada)
the root of the tree
Britt Randle, Caroline Niklas-Gordon (Canada)
Tipping Point
KT Niehoff, Sarah Murat (US)
Untitled
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company (US)
The Whole River
Olive Bieringa, Otto Ramstad, Brian Harnetty (US)
------------------------------------
Hélène Lesterlin
Dance Curator, EMPAC
t 518.276.3918
[log in to unmask]
http://empac.rpi.edu/
EMPAC: Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY
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