46 bis

1988/ 3' choreographer: Pascal Baes film director: Pascal Baes dancers: Sara Denizot, Laurence Rondoni production: Pascal Baes country: France

Choreography on an old French song, made up of body and camera movement. The courtyard of a Parisian block of flats provides a setting for freedom, imagination, and fantasy, where real and imaginary architectural lines make up a sort of chessboard on which evolves the body play of Pascal Baes' two female dancers.

9:00 AM

2001/ 8' choreographer: Katerina Papageorghiou film director: Yiorgos Lanthimos music by: Scubert, Marin Marais dancers: Katerina Papageorghiou οργάνωση: Christos Polymenakos production: Katerina Papageorghiou, Yiorgos Lanthimos, Thessaloniki International Film Festival - VideoDance country: Greece

9 a.m.
Her steps almost pierce the city streets.
She walks without thinking, lost in the streets, in the middle of the road.
9 a.m.
She wakes up but stays in the dark, her eyes
still bound with the mask of sleep.
9 a.m.
White skin, her arms, mouth, and breasts bare in the most
sensual solitary space - the bathroom.
(K.P.)

A dancer drops out of the sky
2000/ 2'
choreographer: Karen Pearlman, Richard James Allen
film director: Karen Pearlman
music by: Amanda Brown
dancers: Richard James Allen
production: The Physical TV company
country: Australia

In A Dancer Drops Out of the Sky digitally generated choreography allows our hero to slide from Italy via Sydney to Poland and back to the clouds in one extended phrase.

Sudden Space
2001 / 8'
choreographer: Mihalis Nalmpantis
film director: Makis Faros
photographer: Panagiotis Tsagkas
music by: This fluid
dancers: Ermis Malkotsis, Stathis Mermigkas, Paul Old
production: Choreutes Group
country: Greece

The three trespassers of Sudden Space dance an excerpt from the performance Horeftes dance company presented under the same title, in Athens in Spring 2000. The video was part of the performance. Choreography by Michalis Nalbantis, based on an idea by Makis Faros, from a performance which explored the possibilities for interaction between 3D virtual reality and movement.

a.m.n. (all my nightmares)
2001/ 3'
film director: Ethem Ozguven
music by: Alper Maral
production: Serkan ciffci, Dylan Pank, Alper Kirklar
country: Turkey

The hard rhythm of the city gives the pace to the personal nightmare of Ethem Ozguven, replacing painful images of the body.

Amniotico

1997 / 7' choreographer: Daniela Lieban film director: Daniela Lieban/ Viviana Farley music by: Alejandro Teran, Axel Krygiel dancers: Daniela Lieban painting: Diego Chemes production: Daniela Lieban country: Argentina

Like a ritual celebration for a new-born human being, this dance is conceived through out the nine-month pregnancy, recreating with the video the differents kinds of inner and outher sensations caused by the physical and spiritual changes and by the seasons of the year (summer, autumn and winter) that take place as the new life is blooming. All the scenes make real sense after the birth, during editing. The music is specially composed by the father, complementing this dance in every sense. Overhead projections of paintings are used both as amniotic scenography and as lighting.

Animated variations

2000 / 5' choreographer: Yvonne Ng film director: Gregory Nixon / Julian Grey music by: Tom Third dancers: Yvonne Ng production: Bravo!facts, Moving Pictures country: Canada

Juxtaposed with animation, this truly vivid dance provides a constantly changing spectacle just like cartoons.

Birds

2000/ 10' choreographer: Yolande Snaith film director: David Hinton production: Arts Council of England, NPS country: Netherlands-UK

Imagine a film without dancers, yet filled with fascinateing movement. Through film editing, music and a choreographer's perception, the unerased, natural movement of birds becomes an exhilarating dance experience. Part of the Dance for the camera / Dansblik series. Best screen choreography award, IMZ Dance on screen 2000. (βλ. επίσης Dead dreams of monochrome men)

Body, little body on the wall

2000/ 6' concept: Jan Fabre film director: Jan Fabre / Wim Vandekeybus music by: Frank Zappa dancers: Wim Vandekeybus production: Filmabrick , Troubleyn country: Belgium

His whole body covered in paint, he dances in a claustrophobic space that changes colors, making him change colors as well. In this film, Wim Vandekeybus, a prominent choreographer of the Belgian scene in recent years, dances the last scene of a solo choreographed for him by Jan Fabre, another outstanding Belgian director, choreographer, and visual artist. Wim Vandekeybus was Jan Fabre's dancer before he also became a choreographer. They jointly direct this film. In it Vandekeybus expresses the following idea: "The body, which is at the same time delineated and exposed on stage, is aware of being exploited, and is protesting against this fact." Constant tension, visual perception of the relation of the body with space, interesting use of the new digital imaging media.

Codex

1987 / 26' choreographer: Philippe Decoufle film director: Philippe Decoufle music by: Hugues de Courson, Oum Calsoum, Fats Domino, ιταλική music by dancers: Cie DCA production: Gedeon, La Sept, Cie DCA country: France

Philippe Decoufle was especially popular with the VideoDance 2000 audience with his films Abracadabra and Le Petit Bal, two of the most creative dance films ever made. Based on the performance of the same name, Codex is an older film of his. The performance was inspired by a 1700 natural history codex he had come across in a laboratory. He was especially fascinated by the mixture of fact and fantasy employed by the author in order to describe the visible world. Decoufle follows suit: He creates an imaginary world, inhabited by wondrous creatures, moving in the most unorthodox and funny ways and performing the most impressive acts - a world evoking an old circus and itinerary magicians as well as the silent movies. He records it on film with an unexpected knowledge of cinematography and the moving image.

Cornered

1997 / 5' choreographer: Suzanna Hood film director: Michael Downing music by: Brennan Green dancers: Suzanna Hood production: FilmFront-Michael Downing country: Canada

A title meant to be taken literally... Suzanna Hood, familiar from the experimental The Light in Our Lizard Bellies, screened in VideoDance 2000, dances a solo on DJ Brennan Green's music in the corner of three walls, using the surfaces of all three. Through high-contrast lighting on the black and white film, that makes spatial details disappear, quick cuts during editing, and smart angles, Michael Downing manages to make the spectator lose all sense of space in an extraordinary 5-minute film.

Cuerpo de sombra y luz

2000/ 50' choreographer: Juan Carlos Garcia film director: Lydia Zimmermann music by: Joan Saura, Xavier Maristany dancers: Cia Lanonima Imperial production: Cia Lanonima Imperial country: Spain

Juan Carlos Garcia, choreographer and art director of the Lanόnima Imperial dance group, followed Paloma Navares' work - mainly video and multimedia installations - for years. The recurring theme in her work is female beauty, the way it is perceived in art and actual life, the different perceptions of beauty through the ages. Above all she is concerned with the perception of the body and the expansion of its capabilities. Finding they had much in common, Juan Carlos Garcia asked her to juxtapose her work with his, creating an installation/stage set in which his dancers express their anxieties about the body in his language and film direction. The result is a dense network of associations, images that reflect and undermine each other, capturing the spectator's eye. (see also Inquieta)

"...d'un faune" (eclats)

2000/ 28' choreographer: Quatuor Albrecht Knust film director: Christophe Wavelet, Simon Hecquet music by: Claude Debussy, Frederic Chopin dancers:Emmanuelle Hyunh, Jean-Christophe Pare,Boris Charmatz, Loic Touze, Jennifer Lacey production: Quatuor Albrecht Knust country: France

Albrecht Knust Quartet propose a new, experimental reading of Nijinsky's choreography on Debussy's Prelude from L'apres midi d' un faune. It is a group of young dancers and choreographers that pose the question of the memory of dance and the relation between choreographies that shaped contemporary dance and contemporary thought. They propose to a group of contemporary dancers to interpret the Faun and the Nymph successively, appropriating Nijinsky's vocabulary and enriching it with contemporary movements. In reinterpreting the work, they highlight all the aforementioned aspects of the choreography, exploring the limits of movement. Although this is a simple filming of three "moments" of the production, the research on movement is so fascinating that it makes up for any lack of sophistication in filming. The still frame employed further accentuates movement in corridors vertical to the spectators' visual axis as well as the two-dimensional quality of Nijinsky's choreography.

Dance

1998 / 4' choreographer: Krause Berlin film director: Krause Berlin music by: Philip Glass dancers: Angelika Bohm production: maxim berlin Filmproduction, r&f Film country: Germany

Krause Berlin's Dance is choreography of the gaze: Making use of the cinematographic language, he makes spectators feel they are watching choreography that was never executed on stage. A series of simple movements by a female dancer on "Knee 1" from Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass are decomposed and recomposed completely in a choreography only taking place in the spectators' minds.

Dead dreams of monochrome men
1989 / 52'
choreographer: DV8 Physical Theatre
film director: David Hinton
music by: Sally Herbert
dancers: Lloyd Newson, Nigel Charnock, Russel Maliphant, Douglas Wright
production: Millennium Productions, LWT, DV8 Physical Theatre, RM Associates
country: UK

DV8 Physical Theatre was established in 1986 with a common goal: to formulate a political discourse through the performing arts of dance and physical theater in order to raise awareness against social discriminations. Constantly renewing its members, the group is always made up of dancers of great expressive and physical caliber. They often use acrobatics in their demanding choreographies (hence "physical"), which they execute with utmost precision and intensity. Their characteristic quality is that whereas they employ narration in order to describe the cruelest situations of social exclusion, a hidden lyricism often emerges through the cruelty, establishing islands of magic. In Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men four men stretch their loneliness and their desires to the limit. Extraordinarily dynamic, often crude movement, harsh lighting, a camera that "sticks to the dancers' skin," and David Hinton's direction that allows all the tensions that emerge among the bodies to come through - awards in every festival it participated. (see also Birds)

Divadlo
2000/ 8'
choreographer: Erre que erre
film director: Guillem Morales
music by: Martin Sebastian Fuks
dancers: Erre que erre
production: Erre que erre, Videografia,
Televisio de Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya-Departament de Cultura
country: Spain

The relations among eight characters in a brothel animate the world of photographer Jan Saudek. Fast pace, sophisticated camerawork and choreography, and a remarkable solo. The film is a 2001 production of the Spanish Festival Mostra Video Dansa funding project.

Duende
2000/ 20'
choreographer: Nacho Duato
film director: Thomas Grimm
music by: Claude Debussy
dancers: Compania Nacional de Dansa
production: RM Associates
country: UK - Spain

With its rich vocabulary, Nacho Duato's inventive choreography is earthy, sensual and emotive, with an underlying passion that often rises to the surface. It demands high energy levels, technical skill and daring from its performers, as well as a strong sense of theatre. Duende is an abstract and beguiling piece, set to music by Debussy.

Ere Mela mela

2000/ 6' choreographer: Lionel Hoche film director: Dan Wiroth music by: Mahmoud Ahmed dancers: Lionel Hoche / David Drouard production: ARTE France, Heure d'ete Productions, Tarantula country: France

Following the successful experiment of the videodance Une danse, le temps d'une chanson (see La complainte du progres), Heure d'Ete, a French production company, assigned six directors and choreographers with creating videodances on six famous French songs for the series One Dance, One Song. What these songs have in common is their exoticism. An extraordinary example of dance film, Ere Mela Mela is the first in the series. In its six minutes, two men go through a relationship that constantly alternates communication, dependence, and play - always with tenderness. Lionel Hoche's dynamic choreography finds a counterpart in Dan Wiroth's creative animation, which makes the little universe of the two men's apartment dance. (see also La Habanera, Ya rayah, La Complainte du Progres)

Estaos quietos hijo de puta
1996/ 22'
choreographer: Elena Cordova
film director: Rodrigo Garcia
dancers: Patricia Lamas, Juan Loriente, Raquel Sanchez, Nekane Santamaria
production: Round 12, Ceyac, Communidad autonoma de Madrid
country: Spain

A provocative look on the city, on everyday life, and the way it determines our relation with our bodies and with each other. A modular film with dynamic direction, creative editing, and bold choreography.

Frida

2001/ 9' choreographer: Eleftheria Rizou film director: Dimitris Koutsiampasakos music by: Vaggelis Fambas sets: Eirini Kontaksaki editing: Lampis Charalampidis cinematography: Ilias Konstantakopoulos production: Eleftheria Rizou, Giannis Deliolanis, Thessaloniki International Film Festival - VideoDance

The film "Frida" is a recollection of the last moments of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The memory of the traumatic events of her life and the redeeming preoccupation with her art are depicted through movement and image.
Music, choreography, and direction focus on the dynamic conflicts in Frida Kahlo's life, illuminating her lonely dream of liberation from the physical pain that kept her stuck on a wheelchair after a serious accident.

Eccho and Narcissus
2001 / 12'
choreographer: Angheliki Papadopoulou
film director: Rousselos Aravantinos
music by: Philipp Glass
dancers: Angheliki Papadopoulou, Stavros Apostolatos
production: Photoskiasis Dance Co
country: Greece

Angheliki Papadopoulou and Rousselos Aravantinos make a film on the ideas of Narcissus being ambivalent and changing roles between Eccho and Narcissus

Inquieta
1997 / 7'
choreographer: Juan Carlos Garcia
dancers: Cia. Lanonima Imperial
production: Lanonima Imperial
country: Spain

A woman experiencing a restless night goes through a nightmare or a series of nightmares that haunt the rooms of a hotel (a location closely associated with sleep). The allegory also evokes the relation of sleep with death. Juan Carlos Garcia, art director of the Lanόnima Imperial dance group, bases his choreography on the nightmarish side of the body. (see also Cuerpo de Sombra y Luz)

Kewai

2000/ 16' choreographer: Kazuo Ohno film director: Kayko Stoh music by: Kayko Satoh dancers: Kazuo Ohno production: Media-Works country: Japan

The word "Kewai" means 'to make up' in japanese. It is a wish for beauty, like a ceremony, that represens the pleasure of metamorphosis. It tricks people like a trap. A making up actor creates a bridge to another world, like a No actor who puts on his mask. When dancer Kazuo Ohno makes himself up, he becomes like a Buddhist priest in training. This way "Kewai" illuminates a universe beyond life and death.
Kazuo Ohno is one of the most renown Butoh dancers and one of its pioneers. More than 90 years old today, he still performs in Japan, Europe, the USA and all over the world.

Korper
2000/ 6'
choreographer: Sasha Waltz
film director: Sasha Waltz
music by: Hans Peter Kuhn
dancers: Sasha Waltz & friends
production: Sasha Waltz & friends, Goethe Institut Inter Nationes
country: Germany

Sacha Waltz is considered as an important creator in the German dance scene. She became co-director of the Schaubuhne, Berlin in January 2000. Formulated in the climate of the German expressionistic dance - Pina Bausch style - her work is also characterized by sophistication in movement and theatricality. Having worked with great teachers in many cities, and having a deep knowledge of Contact Improvisation, she is able to change her style dramatically from performance to performance to suit the subject matter. Her early performances were characterized by a strong political element.
Korper is based on the performance she produced in Schaubuhne in 2000, already on tour. It is a treatise on the human body, its memory, and its representations. Never shy of shocking spectators, she creates images of great intensity. In her self-styled and somewhat bitter sense of humor, she essentially retells the history of the European civilization and modern dance through her stories of bodies. Yet her images never fail to create spectacular tales of bizarre transformations.

L'apres-midi d'un faune

1990/ 11' choreographer: Vaslav Nijinski film director: Colin Nears music by: Debussy dancers: Charles Jude, Marie-Claude Pietragalla production: NVC arts, La Sept ARTE country: France

Nijinski's first choreography on the prelude to L'apres midi d'un faune by Debussy, based on a poem by Mallarme. A faun is relaxing on a hillside in the sun, playing the flute. Seven beautiful Nymphs appear, on their way to bathe in a nearby lake. The faun approaches the Nymphs, but they are frigtened by the strange creature and, as he tries to play with them, they run away. One nymph remains, allowing the playful faun to come closer to her. Although she seems to respond to him at first, she suddenly rushes to join the other nymphs, letting her scarf fall on the ground. The faun picks up the scarf and caresses it, imagining that it is the nymph he has scared. He goes back to his place on the hillside and, dreaming that he has posessd the most beautiful nymph of them all, he makes love to the earth.

La complainte du progres
1999/ 6'
film director: Claudiao Pazienza
production: ARTE France, Heure d'ete Productions, Tarantula
country: France
Part of the Une danse, Le Temps D'une Chanson videodance series, based on old, familiar French songs, Claudio Pazienza and the ALIS group choreograph kitchen utensils, dishwashers, household objects, and an old couple that aware of the importance of human presence nagging and old age notwithstanding. (see also Ya rayah, Ere Mela Mela, La Habanera)

La Habanera

2000/ 6' choreographer: Mie Coquempot film director: Pascal Magnin music by: George Bizet σε εκτέλεση της Grace Chang dancers: Mie Coquempot production: ARTE France, Heure d'ete Productions, Tarantula country: France

Mie Coquempot choreographs Bizet's famous aria from Carmen in a Far Eastern version by Grace Chang for the series One Dance, One Song. Asian herself, she impersonates a Carmen in search of her Escamillo in the streets of Buenos Aires. A choreographical pattern goes on from neighborhood to neighborhood surprising or escaping the attention of the inhabitants of the city. Will she find him? (see also Ere Mela Mela, Ya Rayah,

La-haut
1998/ 8'
choreographer: Pere Jane, Andre Cruz, Isidro Jane
film director: Pere Jane
dancers: Andre Cruz, Isidro Jane
production: Mostra VideoDansa,
Televisio de Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya-Departament de Cultura
country: Spain

Above the stage of an old theater with cranes and hanging gigantic human parts - performance props - a man throws himself in the void. He remains hanging from a rope until suddenly another man falls. Hanging together among the props like acrobats, they explore the relation of attraction and repulsion building between them, the tension, their need for each other, and their competitiveness, until the fall and disappearance of the second man brings the cycle to a close. The dynamic and theatrical choreography of suspension is enveloped in vivid images.

Le bal d'Yvonne
1997 / 7'
choreographer: Collectif de danseurs Ex Nihilo
film director: Danielle Bertotto
music by: Les Edmonds
dancers: Collectif de danseurs Ex Nihilo
production: Lineamento, Copsi
country: France

A nostalgic look at a photograph brings back Yvonne's first Ball. Looking and dancing blend sensitively in this film, one of the six 7-minute films making up the series entitled Sur les Bords du Cadre. (see also Via Celestino)

The Swan Lake
1990 / 103'
choreographer: Mats Ek
film director: Mans Reuterward
music by: Tchaikovski
dancers: Cullberg Ballet, με την Ana Laguna και τον Yvan Auzely
production: Sveriges Television / SVT1
country: Sweden

The son of Anders Ek, Ingmar Bergman's favorite actor, and Brigit Cullberg, dancer and choreographer, founder of the Cullberg Ballets, Mats Ek worked for the theater for ten years before applying himself to dance, first as a dancer and then as a choreographer. His individuality was prominent already in his early choreographies. He rereads the old myths of classical romantic ballet and reverses them, using psychoanalytical terms, a totally personal sense of the comic and tragic, and a vocabulary of movement that turns classical movement "inside out." Charged with emotion, movements and gestures acquire new dimensions, revealing the characters' sexuality.
One of Mats Ek's first choreographies in this series, The Swans' Lake was considered a landmark when it was first presented in 1987. Zigfried appears as an indecisive son, oppressed by a dominant mother. The mother-magician is in charge of the game with Odil/Odette, performed by superb Ana Laguna. Who is to be the final winner in this game of transformations and revelations? Reversals continue up to the very last seconds of credits.
Swans - ugly ducklings of both sexes - question the concept of graceful romantic dance through their clumsy, graceless movements - and this is but one of the classical ballet conventions challenged by Mats Ek.

l.i.g. (life in general)
2001/ 3'
choreographer: Ethem Ozguven
film director: Ethem Ozguven
music by: Alper Maral
production: Serkan ciffci, Dylan Pank, Alper Kirklar
country: Turkey

The eye-screen, look kaid being looked at the same time, as a nightmare, on screen walls, reigns in the lives of the two dancers.

Link I
1999 / 11'
choreographer: Deppie Blankert
film director: Jellie Dekker
music by: Fred Frith
dancers: Paul Selwyn Norton, Mauricio d'Oliveira
production: NPS, Korzo Productions
country: Netherlands

Choreographer Beppie Blankert drew her inspiration for Link (1998) from paintings by Francis Bacon, in which the figures often 'hang' in space as in a frame. She also asked herself the question of what the effect would be on the production of a choreography if the dancers knew no physical barriers. "Link I is a dance for a (married) couple, based on the idea that dancers who have (have had) a relationship do not feel any embarrassment. It is a way of giving extremely personal form to an abstract idea." The result is a male duet which is both fluent and irregular, both playful and smooth, and close but not clinging. Paul Selwyn Norton and Mauricio d'Oliveira dance it to jazzy music by Fred Firth within a demarcated white area, which - contrasted with the darker stage floor - appears to float.

Modus
2000 / 20'
choreographer: Dimitris Sotiriou
film director: Yiannis Mastoris
music by: Arvo Part
dancers: Dimitris Sotiriou, Ermis Malkotsis
production: Sine Qua Non
country: Greece

Choreographies of duos for men dancers are rare in contemporary greek dance scene. This one is an exception. The two dancers who participate in this piece have collaborated for a long time and this shows in their work: their bodys are familiar to each other. This piece, on Arvo Part music, is about seeking, about the constant meetings and separations of two bodies who seek. Hard to depict tenderness and intimacy characterize this piece, part of the Sine Qua Non performance during Month of Dance 2000 at the Open Theatre.

Singles
2000 / 3'
choreographer: Antigone Gyra
film director: Yiannis Mastoris
music by: Amie Mann
dancers: Christos Polimenakis, Martha Kloukina, Ioanna Kampilafka, Stavros Apostolatos, Katerina Skiada, Katerina Argirou.
production: Kinitiras
country: Greece

Quick and smart, this demo for the performance Singles, six solos by Kinitiras Dance Co., brings forth all the characteristics of the choreography: rhythm, theatrical aspect, tension.

Naked 1

2000/ 6' choreographer: Konstantinos Rigos film director / editing: Karolos Zonaras music by: Bach dancers: Kωνσταντίνος Pήγος production: Konstantinos Rigos, Karolos Zonaras country: Greece

Alone on the rooftop - he will take his clothes off - he will dance an erotic dance by himself - he has not found anybody in this city - as if he is dancing for some onlooker, maybe a cyber voyeur - he might die in loneliness - perhaps that would be the ultimate pleasure.

Off white
2000/ 6'
choreographer: Ohad Naharin
film director: Wilbert Bank
music by: Johan Strauss
dancers: NDT 3
production: NDT, RM Associates
country: Netherlands, UK

Israeli Ohad Naharin is one of the most famous choreographers in the world. Having studied dance in Israel and at the Julliard School in New York, he danced with many great dance groups such as Martha Graham's, Maurice Bejart's, and the Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT). His talents in choreography were enlisted by NDT' art director, Jiri Kylian, in a series of choreographies for NDT. Off-white is one of them, made especially for NDT3 dancers (see Watermark). Soon Naharin was invited to choreograph for many great dance groups. Today he is art director of the famous Batsheva Israeli dance group, founded by none other but Martha Graham. His choreographies are characterized by their exploration of the most astonishing possibilities of the human body, humor, a lyrical sensuality, and often intense emotional charge. Off-white is a tragicomic portrait of a couple.

Passage
2001 / 11'
choreographer: Therese Vandamme
film director: Γιάννης Mιτσουρίδης
music by: Armand Amar
dancers: Ex Nihilo
production: Ex Nihilo
country: Greece

Part of a performance presented only once at the Factory of the Athens School of Fine Arts. A group of young dancers directed by Therese Manolakos improvises a ceremony of communication, entering a state of collective participation in a rite, and back to reality.

Petrouchka

1990 / 34' choreographer: Michel Fokine (σε ανάγνωση Nicholas Beriozoff) film director: Collin Nears music by: Igor Stravinski dancers: χορευτές του Mπαλέτου της Όπερας του Παρισιού production: NVC, La Sept ARTE country: France

This is the story of Petrouchka, a puppet with feelings, who wanted to become a human. Always fighting with the Moor for the love of the Ballerina. The Charlatan making a show of their fights, always drops them into that situation. The Moor kills Petrouchka on a fight. Only at the end do we discover that he really had a soul...

Portraits in corpore

2000/ 27' choreographer: Angelin Preljocaj film director: Denis Caiozzi dancers: Ballet Preljocaj production: Ballet Preljocaj, Productions Autrement dit country: France

In his recent works Angelin Preljocaj is haunted by the theme of the bidy as material: its inner and outer part, the fluids of the body remain at the heart of Portraits in corpore. After a long exploration of dance performance as spectacle, in his latest work undermines the traditional relation between spectator and spectacle and sets up a performance rather like an installation. Each dancer, just like an exhibit, interprets a solo set up in a visual environment and at the same time interacts with a video made by Preljocaj on an aspect of each dancer's everyday reality. The dialogue of the various elements that provide the subject matter with the dancer's body expands to include also the relation developing with the spectators' bodies. Spectators perform their own editing while watching the performance. In the film the dancers talk about the work, many excerpts from the solos are shown, and Preljocaj can be heard describing the creative process. (see also Romeo and Juliet)

R.E.S. (Rastros Espiritu, Sedimento) / R.E.S. (Footage Spirits Sediment)

1998 / 4' choreographer: Sonia Gili film director, digital επεξεργασία: Jorge Castro music by: Gonzalo Biffarella dancers: Luis Biasotto, Luciana Acuna, Gabriella Caretti production: Manipulatto Splendid country: Argentina

The depiction of an electronic version of the relationship between the three dancers influenced by visual arts

Recital

1999 / 45' choreographer: Kafig film director: Valerie Urrea music by: Franck II Louise dancers: Compagnie Kafig production: Compagnie Kafig, Ex Nihilo, La Sept ARTE country: France

Established by second generation Arab hip-hop dancers who grew up in a Montpellier suburb, Kafig aims to explore the fusion of contemporary dance with hip-hop. They are a very popular group in France today, and Recital is their best-known performance. Filmed by ARTE France, the famous European art TV channel, this is one of those performances that enchant audiences of every age and background for some inexplicable reason. Kafig were inspired by a violin recital - a very remote kind of event from hip-hop culture. The six violinists are like marionettes controlled by the director, a strange figure that plays music on a music box. The role of the maestro goes to Franck II Louise, one of the best-known radio DJ's, one of the first to endorse hip-hop in France. Kafig use the codes of hip-hop code but also of contemporary dance performances. The result is exciting and very spectacular.

Romeo and Juliette

1996/ 90' choreographer: Angelin Preljocaj film director: Denis Caiozzi / AREVA sets: Enki Bilal music by: Serguei Procofiev dancers: Ballet Preljocaj production: Ballet Preljocaj country: France

Angelin Preljocaj, comes from the Balkans and grew up in Paris. Possibly stimulating this partnership, his origin and childhood experiences in the strange metropolis are things he has in common with comic artist Enki Bilal along with their love for dark futuristic enviroments and an "epic" approach of the tragic. The outcome is unique. Creating a performance that brings Bilal's world to life, Preljocaj preserves the structure of Romeo and Juliet and Serguei Procofiev's music, but accentuates the monstrous and tragic aspects of the story. Enriched with many personal elements, his distinctive style is based on the classical vocabulary. Director of the national choreography center of Aix-en-Provence, he is now one of the best-renowned choreographers in France. Presented here is the latest version of Romeo and Juliet according to Preljocaj, staged in 1996. An older version of the same choreography was presented in Athens. (see also Portraits In Corpore)

Sweet dreams
1997/ 11'
choreographer: Jiri Kylian
film director: Hans Hulscher
music by: Mozart
dancers: NDT
production: NDT, NPS, RM Associates
country: Netherlands

Employing Forsythe's classical dance technique with occasional harshness and often a unique tenderness, Jiri Kylian knows how to place erotica and suggestive ambiences in the service of theatricality. "I seek the moment when the dream invades our lives and our lives invade our dreams," he says.
He has been art director at the Nederlands Dance Theater for years, where he presents most of his choreographies. In Sweet Dreams Jiri Kylian casts an ironic look at the complex world of the human subconscious. In this world, full of secret dreams and desires, the apple becomes the symbol of every forbidden desire. The film is part of a series of six choreographies entitled The Black and White Ballets, filmed in the studio by Hans Hulscher. All six have been filmed without any sets. Dancers emerge from the darkness in a space set up by Joop Caboort's superb lighting. Full of strong symbolic images, a fine sense of humor and true dancing, Jiri Kylian's world emerges from the same darkness. Performed by splendid dancers from the Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT). (see also Watermark)

The Barber's coffee break

1997/ 7' choreographer: Tedd Senmon Robinson film director: Laura Taler music by: Rossini dancers: Tedd Senmon Robinson production: Mark Hammond, Laura Taler country: Canada

Drinking his coffee absentmindedly, the barber is taking a break. Yet the real break comes when he lets his eye wander outside on the snow and his thoughts fly away to a very personal moment of freedom in dancing. A splendid interpretation by Tedd Senmon Robinson of a humorous and musical solo, a very personal and also musical approach by Laura Taler, accompanied by the sounds of Rossini's Figaro and the barber's clipper. A VideoDance 2001 must.

Thresholds: ein ambienter Stadt-Tanz-Film

1999/ 22' choreographer: Annett Walter film director: Annett Walter, Silke Dunkhorst production: take off productions country: Germany

Using modern aesthetics, ambient sounds, and the technique of Contact Improvisation Thresholds explores correlations of spatial perception and the motivation of movements inquiring in associative combinations the sensation of movement in urban space. Music, dance and urban space fuse in an ambient atmosphere.
Following the constant flow of images and movements, the sphere of body and its space are playfully superposed. Dimensions of movements and urban space are juxtaposed as well as joined together.

Transmutations

2001 / 6' choreographer: Apostolia Papadamaki film director: Tasos Vretos, Mihalis Kloukinas, Yiannis Mastris music by: Arnold Schonberg, Richard Strauss dancers: Linda Kapetanea, Ermis Malkotsis, Kiki Mpaka, Vagelio Rantou, Dimitris Sotiriou production: Sine Qua Non country: Greece

Locked up in their boxes, enclosed and distorted by the fluid screen in front of them, a series of bodies move like embryos in amniotic liquid. The music transmutes into moving images, which put the viewer in a differrent dimension of time.
Visual contribution by photographer Tassos Vrettos. This video is part of the performance of Sine Qua Non under the same title, presented in Athens in April 2001.

Via Celestino
1996/ 7'
choreographer: Collectif de danseurs Ex Nihilo
film director: Danielle Bertotto
music by: Les Edmonds
dancers: Collectif de danseurs Ex Nihilo
production: Lineamento, Copsi
country: France

This is the first of six short dance films made by director Danielle Bertotto in collaboration with the Collectif de Danseurs Ex Nihilo. The architectural landscape of a Southern France town street provides a space of freedom for an urban fantasy in which actual and imaginary time fuse.
(see also Le Bal d'Yvonne)

Le spectre de la Rose
2000/ 6'
choreographer: Michel Fokine
film director: Colin Nears
music by: Carl Maria von Weber
dancers: Claude de Vulpian, Manuel Legris
production: NVC, La Sept ARTE
country: France

A young girl enters her bedroom having returned from her first Ball. As she falls asleep on an armchair, the Spectre of the Rose comes into her room and dances with her all night through. When the dawn comes, he bids her farewell and disappears.

Watermark

2000/ 30' choreographer: Jiri Kylian film director: Margaret Williams, Jiri Kylian dancers: NDT 3 production: BBC Worldwide, MJW Productions, Channel 4 country: Netherlands, UK

This is Jiri Kylian's first choreography made exclusively for the camera and the first time that the choreographer himself takes his place behind the camera along with director Margaret Williams. In Watermark the city provides an opportunity for a journey in the world of Jiri Kylian's magical images. Filmed entirely on location in the Hague (both in and out of the water - a scene has been filmed in the huge white atrium of the Municipal building), it combines Jiri Kylian's choreographic dexterity with the vividly personal interpretation of NDT3 dancers. Made up of dancers of a mature age, this is the third group of the Netherlands Dance Theater. Preserving their dancing skills to this age, they also carry an enormous wealth of experience. Watermark is full of passion, humor, and tenderness.
(see also Sweet dreams, Off-white)

Wall
2000/ 6'
choreographer, film director: Jodi Heather Kaplan
production: Jodi Heather Kaplan
country: USA

An allegory on the nature of movement by a contemporary American creator, whose films Immersion and Chorea were shown in VideoDance2000, this is a short visual poem, based on a line by Gabriela Mistral:
Simple and extraordinary wall
Wall without weight and without color:
A hint of air in the air.

Das Tanztheater der Pina Bausch

1998/ 45' choreographer: Pina Bausch film director: Christiane Gibiec dancers: Wuppertal Tanztheater production: Goethe Institut Hong Kong, The arts festival Hong Kong country: Germany

Based in Wuppertal, Pina Bausch's dancers travel every year from city to city, creating performances in which life in the city becomes the protagonist - the sensation they get during their short visits. A journey that inspired Christiane Gibiec's film, in Hong Cong they came up with the Window Washer. Earlier on, it was Lisbon and Mazurca Fogo, New York and Nur Du (Only You) and before that it was somewhere else. Moving from city to city and highlighting what seems different to them, in fact they speak about what brings these cities together.
The film follows Pina Bausch in her wanderings in Hong Kong - which was to be given back to China that year - and her creation of the Window Cleaner, including several excerpts from the rehearsals and the performance. Yet it also gives us an overview of the choreographer's itinerary, with interviews and excerpts from most of her choreographies. The Window Washer is one of her most recent works, in which dancing takes over theater with long solos and group dancing. Peter Pabst's set comprises a mountain of red flowers and a hanging bridge.

Ya rayah

2000/ 6' film director: Claudio Pazienza music by: DahmaneElarrachi production: ARTE France, Heure d'ete Productions, Tarantula country: France

A man charts his course in the city in order to rediscover his present, his past, and the concept of companionship. Film direction here replaces choreography, accompanied by the sounds of a familiar Arab tune by Dahmane Elharrachi, speaking of traveling, exile, and coming back. A superb ambience and ingenious use of new technologies by Claudio Pazienza and the ALIS group.
(see also La complainte du Progres , Ere Mela Mela, La Habanera)

Zoisk

1999/ 16' choreographer: Lene Boel film director: Lene Baoel music by: Henrik Garnov dancers: Lene Boel production: Next Zone, The Danish Film Institute Workshop country: Denmark

Zoisk is a space fable about a creature who wakes up after a long sleep. The creature is whirled into a journey through wild landscapes and subterranean tunnels on the moon lo. A meeting point of dance, video art and cinema, Zoisk is a differrent approach to a site-specific solo, filmed on an Icelandic volcano, at times animated by digital effects.