French Conceptual Dance
Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 7pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies
FREE!
In the 1990s, a new wave of highly conceptual choreographers emerged in France. Now, these artists are at the forefront of avant-garde European dance and performance. This program presents two very different films by choreographers who came out of this wave:
Boris Charmatz & Dimitri Chamblas–Les Disparates (1994)
A delightful, beautifully shot exploration of the possibilities for fragmenting dance through editing, from bar to boathouse and back again.
Jerome Bel–Veronique Doisneau (2004)
A ballet dancer appears alone on stage at the Paris Opera House, narrating her life’s history as a dancer in what will be the final performance of her career.
The Films of Jesper Just
Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 7pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies
Introduced by Performa Film and Dance Curator
Lana Wilson ’05 with reception to follow.
FREE!
Commissioned by Performa to create his first performance for the Performa 05 biennial, Danish artist Jesper Just used three-dimensional technology to create True Love is Yet to Come (2005), an opera exploring the subject of love through an intriguing all-male cast whose emotional nakedness is underscored by pop music and a noir sensibility. This program will showcase the documentation of the performance ofTrue Love alongside Mr. Just’s No Man is an Island (2002) and Bliss and Heaven(2004).
Other Worlds: Daria Martin and Laurie Simmons
Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 7pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies
FREE!
This program pairs films made by two artists who break down the boundaries between dance, visual art, and music, in work that shares a highly aestheticized exterior belying more complex and disturbing content. The elegant work of British artist Daria Martin — In the Palace (2000), Loneliness and the Modern Pentathlon (2004-5), andHarpstrings & Lava (2007) — presents the human body as a mechanized and abstract container for rich emotions, composed with the eye of a painter for two-dimensional surfaces and the mind of a filmmaker for visceral three-dimensional perspectives.Laurie Simmons, best known for her large-scale puppet-based photographs from the 1980s, made her directorial debut with The Music of Regret (2006), a three-act musical that uses puppets to enact tales of ambition, disappointment, love, loss, and regret, suggesting the darker side of domesticity, and the fragile ecology of everyday life. Total running time 78 minutes.
Daria Martin–In the Palace (2000)
2000, 16mm film transferred to DVD, 7 min
Daria Martin–Loneliness and the Modern Pentathlon (2004-2005)
16mm film transferred to DVD, 18 min
Daria Martin–Harpstrings & Lava (2007)
16mm film transferred to DVD, 13 min
Laurie Simmons–The Music of Regret (2006)
35mm film transferred to HDCam, 40 min
Performance Now Film Series is co-sponsored by Wesleyan’s Center for Film Studies.