FilmFest by Rogue Dancer: ParentHOOD

(April 2022)

The emotional roller coaster of developmental offerings. The unrelenting job description to work no one is prepared for. Never-ending laundry and meals. A surprising love and fierce protective instinct never imagined before. The shocking physical changes to feed and protect offspring from the outside world. There is no degree to parent.

With love, forgiveness, patience, firmness and vulnerability we make our best work.

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Now - May 8th, 2022

Your Playbill

Heavy These Days
film by Megan Chu (c) 2019 USA
Megan Chu founded Inimois Dance in 2008 which has been funded by Meet the Composer, Queens Council on the Arts and Fractured Atlas. She has been an artist in residence at the Klaustierd Foundation in Iceland, Chen Dance Center and Cora Studios in New York, Le Feil Artist Residency in France and The Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. In New York, her work has been shown at Center for Performance Research, Lincoln Center, BAX, Dumbo Dance Festival, Ailey CityGroup Theater, and Triskelion Arts among others. Her work has been seen nationally in Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Wyoming, and Illinois. Megan Chu - Director øjeRum - Music

Demeürsass
film by Maxime Joret (c) 2021 FRANCE
Time passing, birds singing, from an abyssal darnkess, an undetermined sphere travels through the space. Demeürsass is the goddess who's home to a future new one in the making. Holding to a pole as a foundation, she builts her dance to embody her role of a bridge. Maxime Joret - Director & Editor Céline Garbay - Dancer Raphaël Hardy - Composer Pierre Foch - Camera Marie Bégué - Camera Roméo Bacqué - LIghts Lucile Mazenc - LIghts Florent Médina - Coloring

《蘋果 - Apple 》 Ping Guo
film by Jiang Xiong (c) 2019 CHINA
The concept of this video comes from my growth experience and thinking about women's perspective. The symbol "Apple" runs through the entire work, metaphorizing and expressing my thinking about growth / youth. Innocence-Confused-Accepted-Devoured-Return ... If this process uses a taste to describe the feeling after viewing, it is like eating a bite of ripe plums, which is memorable, but it is the residual sour taste. Jiang Xiong - Director, Writer & Producer Dancers - Wei Wei, Peng MIngcheng, Xiao Qi, Zhang Xi, Jiang Yani & Yang Yang

The Lovies
Film by Robin Neveu Brown & Kevin Alan Brown (c) 2022 USA
A moving, breathing journal of our family's time together in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Robin Neveu Brown - Director, Choreographer, Cinematographer & Dancer Kevin Alan Brown - Director, Choreographer, Cinematographer, Composer & Dancer

Safe Piece
Film by Isabelle Vigier, Valentina Campora (c) 2019 NETHERLANDS
When her first child was seven months old choreographer Valentina Campora initiated a series of performances where she, the father of the child and the baby are performing together in front of a small audience. The sessions have been documented on video over the last four years. 'Safe Piece' shows a unique dance piece based on the question of how to combine parenting and making dance. Onstage, the family develops a non verbal language that allows them to be all at once within a multitude of polarized dimensions : private and public, playing and performing, caring and taking risks, improvising and creating choreography. Isabelle Vigier - Director Valentina Campora - Director & Producer Dancers - Andy Moor, Valentina Campora, Elio Chaly Campora Moor & Milo Giordano Campora Moor Andy Moor - Music

Garden Bed
film by Laura Cannon(c) 2021 USA
A woman clings to an idealized fantasy of what she thinks parenting should look like, but her children dismantle her expectations by asserting their own authenticity. Family life gets messy, inside and out. This short dancefilm was shot during the most isolated and uncertain months of 2020. Laura Cannon and her children created this work after being quarantined together for many months. Completely self-filmed, most of the shots came from an iPhone duct-taped to the ceiling. Art will carry us through. Laura Cannon - Director, Writer, Producer & Dancer Dancers - Johnny Fisher & Pirle Fisher

Identidad en Maternidad
film by Rebeca Gamborino (c) 2021 USA
This screendance, filmed in the choreographer's home with her son, interrogates conflicting identities and emotions that emerge from the labor of motherhood. Identidad en Maternidad presents the choreographer's/dancer's holistic and embodied journey of instability and anxiety as she rediscovers and mourns the loss of her identity, image of self and body through pedestrian movements and gestures against blurred thrashing and repetitive grabbing motions. The choreographer recognizes personal celebrations of mothering through the lens of her Mexican/Latinx identity as she weaves a traditional Mexican lullaby sung in their family for generations into her exploration. Inspired by the choreographer's lived-experience, Identidad en Maternidad critiques the stereotype that motherhood equals happiness and brings awareness to the oppressive feelings that arise for mothers who are silenced by societal expectations. The work reveals complexities of motherhood through two contrasting visual worlds: an everyday reality and a mother's inner dialog depicted within a black void. Rebeca Gamborino - Director

Meander (Me and Her)
film by Kelly Hargraves (c) 1998 USA
Meander (Me and Her) A 3 minute dance film about a little girl’s day alone, supervised only by a camera. Kelly Hargraves - Director Rob Shapiro - Music

Ward of State
film by Claire Marshall & Sarah-Jane Woulahan (c) 2014 AUSTRALIA
Ward of State is a narrative dance film by Australian choreographer Claire Marshall inspired by the life of her grandmother who was taken from her parents and put into foster care at the age of one. The film was created and inspired by actual events that occurred - some revealed by Claire's grandmother, and some revealed after decades of mystery and silence were uncovered. The film explores the vulnerability of women whose children were removed from them for any number of reasons including, mental health, failure to keep a tidy house, having a chid out of wedlock, or even having a child with a person of a different colour. Often women were placed into mental institutions if their husbands deemed them unfit as wives - the case for Emily, who eventually filed for divorce from coercive Charles (who was from a family of successful touring vaudeville entertainers) after meeting another man- an act almost unheard of at the time. Once subjected to time in a mental ward, their fate was almost certain as the women were subjected to brutal medical treatment, medications and procedures that made their situation worse - as was the fate for Emily, Claire's great grandmother. Ward of State is informed by Claire Marshall's research into her family history and is also informed by other similar true stories of young women and girls who were stolen from their families and placed in convents where they worked in laundries unpaid - a common story for many young women in many countries. Claire Marshall - Writer, Producer & Choreographer Kevin Holloway - Cinematography Dancers - Richard Causer, Chafia Brooks, Libby McDonnell, and Mariana Paraizo

Just About
film by Mahmood Pouyandeh (c) 2021 ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
A young dance instructor girl tries to get her brother enrolled in an elite state-run school. The brother does a good job in the school admission interview but the principal thinks that she can’t afford to pay the school fee and prevents him from getting enrolled. Mahmood Pouyandeh - Director & Writer Shadi Katiraei - Producer Dancers- Amineh Keyhan, Farzan Jalali, Abbas Towfigh & Mohsen Khomeisi Keivan Shabaani - DOP Hessan Parandeh - First Assistant Director & Programmer Yasmin Pedri - Script supervisor Amir Hossein Farrokhi - Edit Midia Kiasat - VFX Mehran Jebeli - Colorist Mehdi Yeganeh - Sound Recorder Siavash Heydari - Sound Design & Music Shahrzad Khast Khodaei - Set & Custom Design Hamidreza Seraj - Executive Producer Midia Kiasat - International Distribution

Deviens
film by Adrien Lhommedieu (c) 2021 FRANCE
A young boy is fascinated by ballet dancing and afraid to admit it until he crosses the path of a ballet dancer Adrien Lhommedieu - Director & Writer Julien Mabin - Producer Guillaume Ofroy - Producer

Warming Up To Play
film by Jennifer Scully-Thurston (c) 2013 USA
A Mom's fun, playful existential crisis in a playground. Jennifer Scully-Thurston - Director, Writer, Producer & Dancer Stella McLester - Dancer Christopher Scully-Thurston - Music

Hungars Beach
film by Kate Corby (c) 2015 USA
Hungars Beach explores memory, trauma and the power of place through a series of simultaneously beautiful and unsettling images. A small beach and cottage provide a vivid backdrop for a woman in distress, haunted by images of her younger self and the inescapable weight of loss. Kate Corby - Director, Editor & Sound Design GoEun Kim - Producer Dancers - Jessie Young, Josh Anderson MinSeung Chang - Camera SeEum Jung - Camera MinSeung Chang - Editor Nat Evans - Sound Design Elizabeth Wadium - Post-production/Color

Duende (Elf)
film by Manuel Ramos Ramos (c) 2021 SPAIN
Paula, a young university student and her best friend train every afternoon in a gym in Seville. But the days go by, and a huge emptiness prevents him from enjoying his youth. One day, something unexpected will cross her path and will catch her forever: Flamenco. Manuel Ramos Ramos - Director, Writer & Producer Marina Duarte - Producer Daniel Sánchez López - D.O.P Jesús Calderón - Composer Miguel Sotelo - Composer Ester Nernáldez - Edit Nino Feliú Cervi - Art Carmen Yebanes - Hair & Make-up Marisol Mata - Costume Paco Sánchez - VFX Dancers - Ángela Bonilla, Rosario Pardo, Teresa Arbolí, Rubén Carballés & Carmen Castellanos

Unspoken
film by William Armstrong (c) 2021 BOTSWANA & DENMARK
A film centered around world-class contemporary choreographer Paul Lightfoot (Artistic Director of the Netherlands Dance Theatre) losing his father during the pandemic. Not permitted into the hospital to say goodbye, he began working with a Danish dancer remotely to create a performance that processes the emotions he and many have shared worldwide. The result is a look behind the curtain into the process of a modern master interpreting loss into physical form - and a powerful beacon of hope to carry us through uncertain times. William Armstrong - Director Paul Lightfoot - Choreographer Sebastian Haynes - Dancer Jacob Møller - Cinematographer Allan Stenild - Producer Alexander McKenzie - Composer Stephen Dunne - Editor

Compostela
film by May Kesler (c) 2019 USA
A multigenerational dance in Gaelic and Galician set in the woods of Maryland, dancing our path supported by pur past and future selves. May Kesler - Director, Producer & Writer