Screendance

Following the success of our first Screendance competition in 2020 we're coming back strong and teaming up with Birmingham International Dance Festival to present two installments of incredible dance film from all over the world.

This first programme, curated by Sima Gonsai, looks at the Screendance genre as a unique language, and brings you showstopping works that couldn't be seen on a stage. Full of colours, energy and ideas, these dance films will get you moving in your living room!

The first programme is available 28-30 May.

Head to our Eventive page to buy your Short Film Pass - with this, you can watch not just the Screendance films, but all the other brilliant shorts in this year's programme. Read on for more info about each film in the first programme, or head straight to Eventive for more details.

Flying Home

Dir. Simeon Qsyea
Six dancers explore isolation in lockdown, battling the limitations of their surroundings and delivering a kinetic reflection of a world transformed during the global pandemic. This work is about the power of reconnecting with yourself, before connecting with your Flock.

Attention Span

Dir. Mitchell Rose
An experiment in seeing - in exploded perspective. A dancer is shot from 16 camera angles and edited at a disturbing rate. It's a response to our culture's hunger for haste. But suddenly there is stillness—only an unchanging portrait of raw humanity, photography's most sublime imagery.

The Protocol

Dir. Avatâra Ayuso
The Protocol is filmed using a colourful, eccentric and retro-vintage cinematic language where the performers - in confidence to the viewer - express their thoughts, exposing their contradictions, fears and worries about our relationship with the other.

Room 264

Dir. Brodie May Rowlands
A woman arrives in an unfamiliar environment and reflects on how she got there. As the room comes to life she reaches for a sense of self - using a physical language to express emotions that are otherwise ineffable.

Hors

Dir. Amélie Gagnon, Julia-Maude Cloutier
Two women-landscapes merge into one another and transpose themselves into distinct places, from winter landscapes to squeaky uninhabited places, in a quest towards their place of belonging, if there is one.

Floor Falls

Dir. Jennifer Paterson, Lewis Gourlay, Abby Warrilow
A woman stands, takes a breath, and moves. Arching her back further than seems possible, she steps forward, rising up onto the tip of her toe and over the threshold. Rotating and twisting, she and the camera dance around each other. She suspends, or has the floor fallen? Floor Falls is a collaboration between award winning film makers Lewis Gourlay and Abby Warrilow of Cagoule and aerial dance choreographer Jennifer Paterson, featuring dancer Freya Jeffs.

OOO

Dir. Lauren Midwinter
Bernie is alone, working at the office on the weekend. It "should" help her get ahead. She "should" be grateful for this (low-paid, undervalued) starter position. She "should" try harder. Should is a small but dangerous word. It can force you into an uncomfortable box.

The Conversation

Dir. Lanre Malaolu
Through a dynamic fusion of movement and dialogue, The Conversation explores the challenges black men and women experience when communicating their experience to white partners.

The second Screendance competition programme will be available online in June, as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival.

Delivered in partnership with Birmingham International Dance Festival (BIDF 2021), produced by DanceXchange.