Posts Tagged ‘kriota willberg’

Pentacle’s Movement Media announces the First Annual UMOVE Online Videodance Festival from October 1-31, 2009 on the web and at select screening locations across the US and around the world in 2009-10.

UMOVE Vision Statement:

The medium of video has exploded on the web, and consequently, the web video format for dance and kinetic-based films is erupting within the media arts.

The web format has its own set of characteristics and conventions, and makes it possible for all disciplines and levels of film-makers to showcase their work.  Movement Media’s goals are to highlight new works and assist Internet audiences in finding artist’s videos specifically dedicated to movement and dance. We also aim to challenge film-makers and audiences regarding their ideas of what dance film or movement media can be.

To date, the web format for dance and kinetic-based film has been under-recognized and under-valued by dance film presenters and curators.  It’s time to give these videos a platform to receive both feedback and critical praise. We seek work that is strong in concept and execution, rather than sporting fancy production values or large budgets. Film-makers are free to use a variety of high and low tech media to create their work. We welcome work that is visually “moving” on intimate viewing devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and ipods.

Therefore, UMOVE is seeking interesting blends of dance and kinetic-based films that explore the full range and scope of this burgeoning genre.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 15, 2009

If your submission is chosen you will be required to submit digital stills and a finished copy of your video on DVD (NTSC only) for screening and publicity purposes by September 15, 2009. All submissions regardless of selection will be made available for public viewing on our blog, Move the Frame.

UMOVE submission categories

• Animation/Gaming – including digital animation, machinima, Second life, Virtual Reality games.

• Cell phone – videos made using a cell phone.

• Gone in 60 seconds – videos under one minute long

• Low/No Budget – videos made for under $1,000

• Surprise me! – unique uses of new media or digital technology

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The First Annual UMOVE Online Videodance Festival will take place October 1-31, 2009. The festival will feature short dance and movement-based videos that were made specifically for the web and other new media formats including cell phones, gaming, virtual reality worlds, and mash-ups. In addition to online programming on YouTube and Movement Media’s blog, Move the Frame, the festival will include a launch party and live screenings in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, UK, and other locations to be announced.

UMOVE was started by three dance film-makers: Kriota Willberg, Marta Renzi, and Anna Brady Nuse (Pentacle’s Director of Movement Media) who are passionate about promoting dance film through any means possible. We seek to find the most innovative and engaging dance videos on the web and to highlight rising talent in the field.

October  1st will mark the launch of UMOVE online, and on October 14th there will be a live screening and party in New York after which the festival will tour to select locations around the country and the world in 2009-10.

MISSION & OBJECTIVE
Movement Media’s mission is to provide services, strategies, and opportunities for artists making dance for the camera, and to help dance artists use media to promote and enhance their artistic pursuits.

For more info on Pentacle’s Movement Media project, please visit our blog: Move the Frame and our website: http://pentacle.org/movement-media.asp

GENERAL RULES

All submissions must exist online and be embeddable (i.e., hosted on YouTube or another sharable online video platform). All videos must be under 8 minutes long. Only one video may be submitted per entrant. Student, professional, and amateur film-makers are all encouraged to apply.

Please submit the following materials via email:

• URL address of your video (double check the link works).

• Short biography/artist statement.

• Clearly label which category the submission should be reviewed under (see category list below).

• Brief synopsis of the video.

• Principal Cast and production credits listing

• Include a link to your website (if you have one)

• Include your email address (if different from the one you are sending from).

• Paste in the Terms and Conditions (see below) and type in your signature

• Email all information to movementmedia@pentacle.org

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• I/we have read all of the rules and regulations for the UMove Online Videodance Festival (hereafter called the “Festival”).

• I/we understand and have complied with these rules.

• I/we warrant the submission of my/our original work and that there are no disputes regarding the ownership of the submission.

• I/we warrant the submitted material does not defame or invade the rights of any person living or dead

• I/we fully indemnify the Festival against any claim made for such violations of law.

• To the best of my/our knowledge, all of the statements herein are true and correct.

• I/we understand that failure to adhere to Festival rules and regulations will result in disqualification.

• I/we hold the Festival harmless from and defend against all claims, demands, losses, damages, judgements, liabilities and expenses (including attorney’s fees) arising out of or in connection with any all claims of third parties, whether or not groundless, based on any film/video submitted to the Festival or on any film/video developed out of such submission.

• By submitting this entry, I agree that the UMove Festival may publicly screen my work as well as use stills and descriptive material in the official program and any other publicity efforts.

• In the event that I am selected as a Finalist, I will provide a finished copy in the format indicated no later than September 15th, 2009.

• I agree to hold the UMOVE Festival harmless in the event of loss or damage to my entry tape or material provided for Festival screening.

Latika Young of the Dance Films Association wrote a great article about Kriota Willberg’s last program for Kinetic Cinema in DFA’s member ezine:

The Worst of the Best:
Kinetic Cinema Gets Down

by Latika Young

Before
taking a hiatus for the summer, Kinetic Cinema, the dance films
screening series curated by Anna Brady Nuse, went out with a bang! “The
Worst of the Best,” a night of “bad” dance film, as selected by guest
curator Kriota Willberg, featured an array of clips and excerpts that
had the audience at Tribeca’s Collective:Unconscious in stitches. With everything
from undulating nude males to jete-ing serial killers to an
over-the-top 80s spandex extravaganza, there was something in the
selection to please even the most well-versed bad dance connoisseur.

The
night began with a little live dance, as Nuse exploded onto the
stage in a frenetic version of the classic dance from “Flashdance”
complete with gold metallic hot pants and matching shoes. A perfect
entrance, it warmed up the audience’s belly laughing muscles and set
the tone for an evening of the dance cliché as encapsulated on film.

Willberg,
co-director of THE BENTFOOTES, which premiered at Dance on Camera
Festival 2008, has been interested in bad dance for some time. She used
to host bad dance film screening parties at her apartment for fellow
dancer and choreographer friends (what better way to build a supportive
dance community–we may be struggling in our own careers, but at least
we are not making dance like that!).

Willberg
developed somewhat tricky criteria that determined her selections for
this “tour of surprisingly bad dance films from the early 1900s to the
present.” As she explains, there is a difference between “bad” dance
and just “boring” dance. Bad dance necessarily “provokes a strong
emotional reaction” in the audience, and, as Willberg points out, these
are more often than not the dances people end up discussing fervently
with friends. Boring dance, on the other hand, “is just dull” and is
easily forgotten. Where it gets tricky is with the question of
production values. For Willberg, even boring dance, with a big enough
budget, becomes bad dance by virtue of the unrealized potential of its
grandiosity. Any otherwise boring dance film with a large enough budget
enrages Willberg to the point that it has elicited a strong emotional
response and thus qualifies as a truly bad dance.

The
screening began with a video montage of clips culled from the internet
of dances intended to demonstrate “boring.” All low production value,
the clips may have come from YouTube or artists’ personal websites, but
they certainly were not from Hollywood blockbusters. The original
videos likely go on for what must feel like many very long minutes, but
edited down into a quickly paced montage, they were not really that
boring after all. Instead, the curatorial process of cramming them side
by side and positing them into humorously crafted sub-categories, such
as “Women and Their Hands,” “Semi-Clad Undulating Duets,” and my
personal favorite, “Nude Men Kinetically Recumbent,” highlighted their
humor rather than their boredom. Fortunately, though, the audience was
saved from having to watch any of the clips in their entirety. Anyone
who has sat on a dance film festival pre-screening committee can
undoubtedly understand.

The bulk of the
offerings, however, were clips from films released on the big screen
and each example was selected to provide a more nuanced understanding
of Willberg’s definition of bad. The gem of the night, glittering in
decadent ridiculousness, was Ben Hecht’s 1946 film SPECTRE OF THE ROSE.
Choreographed by Tamara Geva, Balanchine’s first wife, the two dance
scenes presented were performed by Ivan Kirov. An attempt to combine a
murder mystery with classical ballet, the result, at least to modern
eyes, comes across more as camp than refinement. In the first scene,
the male ballet superstar (Kirov) has been confined to bed for two
years after killing his first wife. Suddenly feeling better, he is
inspired to dance, performing ebullient feats of jete and pirouette
that are made that much more incredible (and farcical) considering his
extended period of inactivity (perhaps, instead, we should feel
relieved he did not join the ranks of the “kinetically recumbent nude
male” as we witnessed earlier). The second scene has our star
re-entering a state of insanity and struggling with his desires to kill
his second wife. Fortunately, derangement does not deter our
protagonist from his dancing tour de force and, with knife in hand, he
catapults about the room, balletically crashing into walls, before
leaping with pointed feet through a glass window, to his certain death
below. This is a bad dance film made so by both its delicious
anachronistic ballet moves (likely quite magnificent for the time but
which seem highly dated to the modern viewer) and its equally
ridiculous backstory.

Other choices
from the evening included THE MOTHERING HEART, the 1913 D.W. Griffith
film that features background dancers, undoubtedly quite common on the
vaudeville stage of the time, who appear as gallivanting
Isadora-nymphettes and a leopard skin toga-ed couple who awkwardly
perform Lindy aerial moves, STAYING ALIVE, the sequel to SATURDAY NIGHT
FEVER, as directed by Sylvester Stallone (and, yes, Travolta does wear
a very Rambo-eque headband), and scenes from the film everyone loves to
hate, Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 SHOWGIRLS, which is just bad in so many
divine ways.

Willberg wants to know,
“What is the worst dance film ever?” To share your favorites, or most
hated, e-mail her at info@duramater.org and be sure to tell her why.
After a summer break, Kinetic Cinema returns in October. E-mail Anna
Brady Nuse at mtf@straighttothehelicopter.com to get on the mailing list.

Kriota Willberg’s program, “The Worst of the Best” for Kinetic Cinema Monday night was extremely entertaining. She proved beyond a doubt that examining truly bad dance film is fun, inspiring, and highly effective at eliciting an emotional response from the crowd.

For all of you who thought about or responded to Kriota’s earlier online poll “What’s the Worse Dance Film Ever” you may be interested to see what made the cut in the end. Here is the list of the films she discussed Monday night and a short summary of why they were chosen:

The Mothering Heart (1913), Dir: DW Griffith
Reason: MADE BAD AND STRANGE BY HISTORY

Spectre of the Rose (1946), Dir: Ben Hecht, Dancer: Ivan Kirov, Chor: Tamara Geva
Reason: MADE WORSE BY THE BACKSTORY
 


Torch Song (1953), Dir: Charles Walters, Dancer: Joan Crawford and ensemble, Chor: Charles Walters
Reason: OFFENSIVE = BAD (Cast was in black face in 1953!!)

Staying Alive (1983), Dir: Sylvester Stallone, Dancers: John Travolta, Finola Hughes, Cynthia Rhodes, Chors:  Dennan and Sayhber Rawles
Reason: DRAMA!!!!

Center Stage (2000), Dir: Nicholas Hytner, Dancers: Amanda Schull, Sascha Radetsky, Ethan Stiefel, and ensemble, Chor: Susan Strohman
Reason: THE SAFE CHOICES AREN’T ALWAYS THE BEST CHOICES

Showgirls (1995), Dir: Paul Verhoeven, Dancers: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon and ensemble, Chor: Marguerite Pomerhn-Derricks
Reason: DRAMATIC! OFFENSIVE!  MADE WORSE BY BACKSTORY!

Preceding the bad dance films, Kriota also discussed the difference between BAD and BORING and illustrated it with a montage of boring dance film and video clips she culled from the web (actually her poor assistant, Gretchen culled them from the web!). The interesting thing about the difference between bad and boring is that it often comes down to money. Apparently the “have nots” aren’t really capable of making truly bad art, only dull art. As Kriota explained, when a filmmaker has over a million dollars to make a dance movie, and it turns out to be boring, then we are outraged, “Is that all that you could do?” and that automatically bumps it into the bad category. Whereas when a low budget video of, say, a naked man flapping around on the floor in a puddle goes on and on, it’s just dull and we feel like we are wasting our time.

I’d never thought of this difference before, but in terms of my emotional response it’s true, I’m more outraged by a squandering of resources and opportunities than watching a boring video on YouTube. I guess jealousy has a big role to play in what makes something bad or just boring, which is also proof positive of the irrationality behind all demarcations of good and bad. Who can really judge these things beyond a reasonable doubt? No one, but at least Kriota has taken a stab at defining her standards for judgment, something all of us curators, presenters, and critics should do!

Amy Greenfield, a cine- and videodance pioneer, was also in attendance Monday night and had some interesting insights to share…

Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t miss the last Kinetic Cinema before we break for the summer!

“Staying Alive” dir. Sylvester Stallone, “Showgirls”
dir. Paul Verhoeven

On Monday June 2nd, choreographer and dance
filmmaker Kriota Willberg will host The Worst
of the Best, a tour of inspiringly bad dance films from the early 1900’s to the
present. Truly awful dance is powerful art.  We react strongly to it as an
audience, we relate our horrible experiences to our friends and warn them away
from it, we laugh, we seethe, we remember it far longer than
“good” dance, and possibly longer than “great” dance.   Join us for
film and discussion as we chase that ethereal muse, Badness, through the work of generations of dance film artists.

Kinetic Cinema
Monday June 2nd, 7:30pm
$5 Admission (buy tix at the door)

@ Collective:Unconscious 
279 Church
Street (just south of White Street)
New York, NY 10013
Trains: 1 to Franklin;
A, C, E to Canal
http://weird.org/films.htm
212.254.5277
MORE INFO: www.movetheframe.com
 

Kinetic Cinema at Collective:Unconscious explores the intersection
of dance and the moving image both on screen and stage. Each month curator 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. In the fall upcoming guests will include Elizabeth
Zimmer (Oct 5th),  Maya Ciarrocchi (Nov 3rd), and new films by
Anna Brady Nuse & friends (Dec 1st).

KRIOTA WILLBERG has danced and choreographed in Germany, Chicago,
and New York.
In addition to working with her company, Dura Mater, Willberg choreographs for
commercial, theatrical, and other dance productions. Dance choreography for
film includes The Bentfootes  (dir. K. Willberg and Todd Alcott),
Grasshopper  (dir. Todd Alcott), Dreamgirl (dir. Robbie Busch), and
On The Road With Judas (dir. JJ Lask). She has passed her basic proficiency
tests in Single Sword and Broadsword techniques from the Society of American
Fight Directors (SAFD) and occasionally includes fight choreography in her own
work and for others. Her article on dance and stage combat was published in the
SAFD magazine, The Fightmaster. Her ballerina tattoo was featured in Dance
Magazine.

“The Bentfootes” by Kriota Willberg & Todd Alcott

At the next Kinetic Cinema on June 2nd, choreographer Kriota Willberg will be presenting a hilarious program of the worst dance films in history. To help her compile her list, she is seeking input from the community. Please comment here with your top picks of the worst dance films, and come out to Kinetic Cinema to see what makes the cut!

From Kriota:

1.  WHAT, IN YOUR OPINION, IS THE WORST DANCE FILM OF ALL TIME, EVER?  It can be a full film or just an excerpt, and any style or type of dance at all, but it has to be on film.

2. WHY?

Please submit your answers in the comments section below by Friday May 16th.

The
reason I’m asking is that I’m putting together an evening of “Bad”
dance film clips.   As many of you know, I’ve been studying bad and
mediocre dance for a number of years.  As I put the program together, I
am organizing examples of different categories of Bad  (offensive,
inept, confusing, etc.) from the early 1900’s to the present.  As an
acknowledgment to the highly personal perception of bad dance, I’d love
to get your input.  Below is the description and particulars of the
night.

Thanks for your time!

Best,

Kriota Willberg