Still from Fünf ‘n’ Twist

On Monday December 1st at 7:30 pm, Kinetic Cinema will feature new and old works on American culture and life in war-times. The first half of the program will feature sisters Kerrie Welsh (video artist) and Sasha Welsh (choreographer) who will show a live performance of an in-progress excerpt from their current collaboration, Trace Decay, as well as films and videos by historically important female figures that have influenced their thinking about gender, media, violence and the aesthetics of war.

The second half of the program will be a selection of films that have influenced film-maker Anna Brady Nuse and composer J Why in the making of their latest videodance collaboration, Fünf ‘n’ Twist. Drawing from classic images of American adolescence in the 20th Century, Fünf ‘n’ Twist is a satirical teenage odyssey that takes place at the prom and grapples with issues of freedom and authority. In addition to showing a rough cut of the work, the artists will discuss the how their project came about with marketing executive Calvin Wilson.

Trace Decay

Kinetic Cinema

Monday Dec 1st, 7:30pm
$10 Admission
Reservations: 212.254.5277

Interborough Repertory Theater (IRT)
154 Christopher Street, Suite 3B (btw Greenwich & Washington Streets)
New York, NY 10014
Trains: 1, PATH to Christopher Street

Kinetic Cinema explores the intersection of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month Anna Brady Nuse invites a special guest from the dance community to share the films and videos that have inspired or moved them. These could be films that feature dance, are kinetic-based,or have
been influential on their work in some way. The guest curators come from a range of backgrounds as performers, choreographers,critics, and filmmakers. Stay tuned for more info on our new season at Chez Bushwick starting January 14th, 2009!

Kinetic Cinema is a co-presentation of Collective:Unconscious and Pentacle Movement Media, and is part of The Collective for Loving Cinema Series, a weekly themed-film series presented by Collective:Unconscious. The Collective for Loving Cinema Series is supported, in part, by the New York
State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. This presentation of Fünf ‘n’ Twist is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administrated by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Movement Media is a new project of Pentacle, offering screenings, services, and online interactive publications about dance for screen. For more info and to get up-to-date news and event information go to www.pentacle.org or Move the Frame blog: www.movetheframe.com.

photos from top: Fünf ‘n’ Twist by Anna Brady Nuse; Trace Decay photo: Steven Screiber, performers: Cynthia St. Clair and Cindy Chung Camins

Details:

The Dance Film Lab is moderated and organized by Zach Morris (Third
Rail Projects), produced and run with the assistance of Kathleen Green,
and in cooperation with the Dance Films Association. Hosted by Dance
Theater Workshop, this salon brings dance filmmakers together to
present raw footage, drafts, works-in-progress and newly finished films
to their peers for constructive feedback, to share information, and
address technical, practical and artistic challenges. The lab is free
and open to the public, though reservations are necessary.

For our upcoming September 2nd Dance Film Lab, where we’ll be screening the work of Leah Kelley Xylona and Anna Brady Nuse.

Dance Film Lab, Tuesday, September 2, 2008 8-10pm
at Dance Theater Workshop (DTW)
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
Phone: (212) 691-6500 Click Here for DTW’s website.
Please contact Zach Morris to RSVP.
 
 (please note: Zach will out of town August 24th to the morning of September 2nd.  During this time he will not be responding to emails, so if you email him, simply consider your RSVP confirmed).

Photo credit: Production still from the set of Fünf ‘n’ Twist, directed by Anna Brady Nuse (Tika pictured as the Matron). photo by Susanna Christians.

For the last three weeks I’ve been completely consumed by my videodance project, Fünf ‘n’ Twist. Last Thursday and Friday we shot all the prom scenes of the video, and it marked my first time directing (and producing) an indoor shoot.

Kerrie Welsh & J Why, on set of Fünf ‘n’ Twist. Photo: Susanna Christians

Through a monumental effort on the part of my cast and crew, we got all the essential shots done, including a tricky Busby Berkeley-esque overhead shot that required my DP, Kerrie Welsh, to climb a 16 foot extension ladder and mount her camera to the side with a hi-hat and rachet strap.

Fünf ‘n’ Twist – Twist Dance Storyboard from Anna Brady Nuse on Vimeo.

This storyboard is of the twist dance scenes of the video. Originally I was also going to shoot a slow dance scene that would have more of an 80’s feeling. However on the first day of shooting we were getting very behind schedule, and I realized the slow dance scenes would have to be cut. I had already decided that they weren’t so essential to the story line, and in some ways they might have even detracted from the overall piece. The twist dance is at the opening of the video, and the dance along with the music will set up the themes of authoritarianism & rebellion, fear, sex, and that in between place I’m calling fünf, as well as point towards America’s cultural adolescence in the second half of the 20th Century.

Production still of Fünf ‘n’ Twist. Photo: Susanna Christians
Remarkably we were able to shoot all of the scenes I had envisioned without any major compromises. My dancers pulled off the choreography that I came up with on paper.. Donna Costello and Matt Sweeney, the two leads, rehearsed the choreography with me ahead of time and then taught it to the other three couples on set.

The dancers all handled the surprises I threw at them with poise and a can-do attitude. This included asking the guys to flip off the girls’ backs from a bridge position and do a cartwheel from the left side. The latter request wasn’t possible for all the male dancers to do, but our grip, Stephen Long, stepped in to save the day. With a background in gymnastics he put on the tux and performed the cartwheel perfectly, earning a second credit of “stunt double.”

Now I just have one more scene to shoot, which is a “flash-forward” scene of the lead couple holed up in a dingy tenement with paper walls. I won’t give away the details, but I’m hoping to raise the funds and resources to shoot these scenes in early ‘09. In the meantime I’ll be working hard along with my composer/collaborator, J Why to create a rough cut of the finished scenes to screen here in New York before the end of the year.

Here is a video study of the final scenes of the film, when the boy and girl escape the prom and run into a wild overgrown city park to “get it on.” Instead of portraying the cliche sex scenes literally, I decided to portray them in a ritualistic metaphorical way, where we see the inner feelings of the characters portrayed outwardly in symbolic imagery.