INTERNATIONAL VIDEODANCE FESTIVAL OF CHILE OPEN CALL 2012

CALL FIVC  3.0
Deadline MAY 15 th  2012
This year FIVC will be expanding to the a streets and other cultural spaces in the city of Santiago and seek works that interact with the audience and the general public in innovative ways.
FIVC 3.0 is open for works in three categories:
vd5 – (short works for public spaces)
vdfilms – (medium length dance for camera works for theatrical screenings)
files – (documentaries for theatrical screenings)

From these categories, it is intended to expand the interaction of video-dance, which inhabits a still indecipherable visual territory between body and camera.

For futher questions, please e-mail: festivalvdchile@gmail.com

FIVC
Festival Internacional de Videodanza de Chile
International Videodance Festival of Chile

PORCH STORIES, Photo: Gary Tacon

Marta Renzi’s Kinetic Cinema program “Let Me Entertain You” presented at Gibney Dance Center on Thursday March 22nd had a political and moral message behind it’s light title – Making an audience laugh is just as important and necessary a function of art as making them cry, or question, or think.

The evening was centered around a quote from Preston Sturges’ iconic 1941 film “Sullivan’s Travels” in which a Hollywood filmmaker sets out to make a “serious” film about poverty in America during the Depression. After a series of mishaps, the hero is believed to be dead and he ends up in jail, where he truly learns the dehumanizing oppression of poor people. The only light in the whole experience comes when he watches a movie with his fellow inmates, and he finds himself laughing tears of joy at the antics of Disney characters (just the sort of trite entertainment he was critical of when he set out on his journey). At the end of the film he tells his producers he wants to make a comedy, and leaves us with this unforgettable last line: “There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh! Did you know that’s all some people have? It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan! Boy!”

For filmmaker and choreographer Marta Renzi, this sentiment can be seen throughout her thirty years of art making, in which she has worked with people of all ages, classes, and races, both professional and amateur. Her mandate is to bridge art with real life, and she has done it in laundromats (The Welcome Table), auto mechanic’s garages (Year, Make, Model), neighborhoods (Porch Stories), and rust belt towns (Little Wild Heart) to name a few. In the mini-retrospective she showed at Kinetic Cinema we could clearly see her love for common people. Regardless of technique, budget size, or production elements above all else, Renzi wants to show the virtues of ordinary people in their daily lives, and the acts of celebration, joy, pain and pride that are there if only someone will shine a light on it. Interestingly, Renzi has approached this not as a gritty documentarian, but as an entertainer and a dancer.

In many ways, it is the archetypes of the working person that interest Renzi rather than the specific stories of individuals. In her films dance is a means of turning everyday tasks into ritualized sacred acts that defy normal space and time. In “The Welcome Table” working class black women look like high priestesses of the laundromat. As if by magic, the little white girls whose clothes they are washing appear in a procession through the laundromat and then disappear again, only to reappear in a hidden garden of a crumbling mansion. In Porch Stories the neighborhood characters evoke fairy tale counterparts including a “Pied Piper” old musician being followed by mischievous children, and a “Rapunzel”-like author trapped by her own writer’s block on her porch high on a hill.

Opening the evening was a short improvisatory solo and a video work by Arthur Aviles, a long time friend and performer of Renzi’s. Arthur’s video, “To Be Real” tells the story of a pheasant that was trapped in the Hunts’ Point neighborhood of the Bronx, and how the bird’s release inspired a dance (performed by the beautiful Althea Pace outdoors on the Bronx waterfront). Aviles is also concerned with bridging art with community and creating an atmosphere of inclusion. He is the founder of BAAD! (The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), in an old factory space in Hunts Point that has become a beacon for creative talent in this notoriously poor and underserved part of the city.

In a world that is polarized by words such as entertainment vs. art, socialism vs. capitalism, liberal vs. conservative, it is so refreshing to see Renzi and Aviles’ work which seems to bridge these dualities and show us how we are all in this “cockeyed caravan” together. That is the beauty of art, especially poetic forms like dance. We can go beyond the either/or’s and see how we are connected in divine and beautiful ways.

To learn more about Marta Renzi and her work go to: martarenzi.blogspot.com.
To learn more about Arthur Aviles go to: www.bronxacademyofartsanddance.org

PORCH STORIES, Photo: Gary Tacon

Kinetic Cinema: Let me Entertain You

Screening and discussion with Marta Renzi

Marta Renzi, an acclaimed choreographer and filmmaker, curates a provocative program of Kinetic Cinema that reveals the real inspiration behind her work, and reminds us of why art matters:

“Asked to share something about why I make dance films, I find myself showing excerpts from feature films that include a prison gang, a drunken orgy, and run the gamut from Greek tragedy to Saturday morning cartoons. To accompany these, I’ve chosen bits from my own dance films featuring characters with everyday lives and actual jobs – nursing aide, garbage collector, fast food worker, bartender – and who dance like it.”

Arthur Aviles, a long time performer and collaborator of Marta’s will open the evening with a video and solo piece of his own.

Marta Renzi has been making dances professionally since 1976.  In 1992, Marta received a New York Dance & Performance Award (a “Bessie”), and in 1995 was the first recipient of a Dancing in the Streets award as “a fearless explorer of all manner of unconventional sites, integrating art into everyday life.” In 1981, she made YOU LITTLE WILD HEART, a half-hour video dance for PBS, followed in 1989 by a second for television entitled MOUNTAINVIEW, made in collaboration with filmmaker John Sayles. Since 2005, she has self-produced several short films which have been screened nationally and internationally.

Arthur Aviles is a Bessie Award-winning dancer and choreographer of Puerto Rican descent. Mr. Aviles was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and toured internationally with the company for eight years 1987 to 1995. In 1996 Mr. Aviles founded Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre (AATT) in Paris and moved the company to the Bronx the same year. In December 1998, he inaugurated a new performance space in the American Banknote Building, a warehouse in the Hunts Points section of the Bronx. His company is the centerpiece of BAAD! – The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.

NYFA’s Doctor’s Hours for Filmmakers at 20 Jay Street, Brooklyn

Thursday March 29th, 6-9pm

NYFA Learning is pleased to announce that with the success of our first Doctor’s Hours for Filmmakers, we are continuing the program. The next round of one-on-one consultations will be held on Thursday, March 29th, from 6-9pm.

Starting a new film? In the middle, finishing, or trying to get one seen? Would you like some professional feedback on a work sample, trailer, website, outreach strategy, written material or grant application? Get the conversation started and come to NYFA’s Doctor’s Hours for Filmmakers. This event will provide you with individual, 20-minute one-on-one consultations with theatrical and nontheatrical distributors, exhibitors, broadcasters, outreach strategists, and fundraisers. Bring a short work sample or trailer, or show them your website, written materials or a grant application. Each appointment will be $25, and there is a three appointment limit.

Consultants: Thursday, March 29th, 6-9pm

Caitlin Boyle, Grassroots and advocacy-driven distribution and marketing, audience outreach and engagement

Jim Browne, Distribution, festivals, exhibition, digital distribution options

Ryan Harrington, Proposals, grant applications, festivals

Amy Finkel, Websites, interactivity, documentary production

Lynn Lobell, Proposals, grants, written materials

Christie Manning Marchese, Social media, new media, blogger engagement, transmedia campaigns

Paul Marchant, Distribution, promotion, festivals

Merrill Sterritt, Outreach, audience development and engagement, theatrical exhibition campaigns

Michael Tuckman, Distribution, festivals, promotional campaigns

*If you will be requesting feedback on a grant application or written material, please be prepared to provide it to us at least one week in advance.

For consultant bios visit our website
The topics we have suggested next to the names of our consultants (above) are certainly not complete descriptions of their expertise. For a better idea of their experiences and knowledge please refer to the short biographies on our website and check the websites of their own businesses and organizations.

TO REGISTER: Please visit our website for the link to registration. This link will activate at 10am on Thursday March 15th.

***Please Note – the registration form will not be active prior to 10am, Thursday, March 15th, 2012. When you register you will need to make a login account for your first registration.

WHERE:
New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)
20 Jay Street, Suite 740
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Directions

At the 8th international online-dancefestival SideBySide-net, talented dancers, choreographers and producers get the unique opportunity to present their work on an established dancevideo-platform and to a broad international audience for a longer period of time. In recent years, the festival’s website has been visited by over 100,000 people. The audience’s favourite artists will receive prizes of up to 3,000 Euro. Crucial criteria for nominations are the quality of dance, an individual style, and an innovative realisation of an interesting topic.

» Download application form here

Application deadline: June 1st 2012. The postmark’s date is relevant.