Letter from the Director
Welcome to Dance Camera West’s 5th annual dance film festival, an exciting overview of contemporary audiovisual culture. Over the coming month at REDCAT, the Hammer Museum, the American Cinematheque, and the Los Angeles Film Festival, DCW will be presenting some of the most exciting and provocative explorations from the intersection of media and performance that can be seen anywhere.
For five years now, DCW has been calling this event a dance film festival. But we have a confession to make -- these are not dance films, not in the traditional sense anyway. Rather, they are investigations into the state of the art in movement and media called dance on screen, a genre that has been developing in the United States, Europe and Canada for the past 20 years. Instead of trying to explain this, we have just presented the work in the hope that it would find an audience, and it has, as packed houses everywhere from the Getty, the Skirball, the Hammer and REDCAT, to the American Cinematheque, and even TreePeople will attest.
For our fifth anniversary, we have assembled a powerful, compelling, and entertaining collection of films. From the more than 200 entries, we’ve chosen 50 films that reflect the medium’s avant garde, representing not only the current state of the art in places like Paris, London, Tokyo, and Berlin, but exciting new works from Uruguay, Argentina, Slovakia, Sweden, and Estonia. And while we’ve included a large complement of internationally recognized, award-winning work, the 2006 festival also reflects DCW’s dedication to emerging artists.
The result is a program that reflects the iconoclastic vision of host venues like the REDCAT and the Hammer Museum, and delivers a consistently strong statement on the current aesthetics of the evolving art form of screen dance that makes 2006’s festival the edgiest and most exotic ever.
This year’s festival, one that we hope will provoke considerable debate, includes an International Collection of Dance on Screen showcasing three different programs of the newest dance films from around the world at the REDCAT in downtown LA; the premiere of the new documentary featuring postmodern pioneer Rudy Perez; a unique installation of 25 international short dance films Beyond Dance Film: Physical Expression and Visual Media exploring the body and movement as a means of expression through electronic visual experiments shown continuously on multiple screens and projected on surfaces throughout the courtyard of the Hammer Museum; a dialogue on the Future of Dance on Screen at the Hammer with guests from Norway and Seattle; Director Carlos Saura’s Tango at American Cinematheque’s Aero; and a special partnership with Los Angeles Film Festival with the documentary, A Place to Dance set in New Orleans.
Before DCW, very few opportunities existed for choreographers, filmmakers, dancers and other artists involved in this burgeoning field to come together. Recognizing that artistic inspiration is often fueled by constant dialogue and unexpected partnerships, we have sought to provide a forum that allows this emerging body of work to experience the dynamic growth that it needs.
There are so many people here in Los Angeles who have contributed to the field of this dynamic evolving genre. We want to express our sincere gratitude to all our funders, supporters, volunteers and the many friends who stepped up over and over again to make Dance Camera West a vital, forward-looking Southern California cultural institution.
We thank you for coming and supporting Dance Camera West.
Lynette Kessler
Artistic Director
Dance Camera West |
