Extraordinary mix of film, dance
Comments 0 | Recommend 1The Colorado College Extraordinary Dance Festival just can't stand still.
Last year, then-new director of the festival Patrizia Herminjard expanded the number of performances from one to five. This year, the festival's fifth anniversary, she's added another dimension: film screenings.
"It's something that you can't see anywhere else in Colorado Springs," Herminjard said of dance films, which have been gaining worldwide popularity in recent years.
"Bringing together the arts of film and dance is relatively new," she said.
On July 5, she'll screen 90 minutes of 2- to 45-minute shorts, including "Horizon of Exile," directed by the UK-based filmmaker and choreographer Isabel Rocamora. The 22-minute piece evokes the experiences of Iraqi exiles through choreography set in a desert landscape, performed by burqa-clad women, over a soundtrack that includes testimonials of real-life refugees.
"Some of the films are more difficult to watch," Herminjard said. "The Cost of Living," for instance, features a dancer with no legs.
But the Swiss "Inearthia" is "really fun, clever, and simple," Herminjard said.
For those moved by dance but a little mystified when asked to interpret what they've seen, Herminjard offers the "Informance" series she initiated last year. A combination dance performance and informational session, the series kicks offi Wednesday with a belly dancing demonstration.
The second show will feature circus performers and dancers Tanya Scully and Helen Von Der Waydbrink, and the third, Jan Erkert, who explores connections between identity and movement.
"We're contextualizing dance," Herminjard said.
The pinnacle of the festival, the annual gala, will feature a variety of dance styles, including aerial (performers strung from the ceiling by ropes), frame (performers dancing in a giant, suspended rectangle), Chinese pole (acrobatic style) and modern, and a solo hip-hop dancer from New York.
Old favorites, such as acrobalance performers Sara Joel and Kevin Gibbs, will join acts new to the festival, such as hip-hop dancer Brian Green.
Between the sets, while stage hands swap out various dance contraptions, Herminjard promises entertaining banter from Birgitta De Pree (alter ego "Babette") and clown Jim Jackson of Manitou Art Theater.
Students who attend the three weeks of workshops offered during the festival will present their own projects July 17 at the Young Artists Concert. Students come from as close as Colorado Springs and as far as Taiwan.
"That's what's so wonderful about the festival; it's people who come together from all corners of the world to share their message," Herminjard said.
No comments:
Post a Comment