DCW 2009 Fall Screening Schedule

LA DANSE Screening at Laemmle Theaters

Opens November 20, 2009

Limited Engagement

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Frederick Wiseman has devoted the past four decades to studying institutions, making classics such as HIGH SCHOOL (1968), LAW AND ORDER (1969) and PUBLIC HOUSING (1997). He resists simple interpretations of his work. “If I could summarize it in 25 words,” he says, “I shouldn’t make the movie.” His typical working method is to spend four to six weeks embedded in an institution, with his long-time cinematographer John Davey shooting on 16mm. While editing the material, Wiseman avoids narration or text cards, and doesn’t force the events into a simple narrative arc. In LA DANSE, Wiseman allows us to observe multiple corners of the Paris Opera Ballet, from rehearsal studios to costume rooms to administrative offices. We get extensive access to choreographers as they work with dancers in both classical and modern styles. You needn’t be a dance aficionado to marvel at the beauty and athleticism on display. And Wiseman doesn’t ignore the reality that all this art costs money.

The film is a rare glimpse into the world of The Paris Opera Ballet – from airy rehearsal rooms to live performances at L’Opera de la Bastille and the famed Palais Garnier. Costume shop to cafeteria, we follow the company through the creative development of seven ballets – modern and classical – featuring choreography by Pierre Lacotte, Pina Bausch, Wayne McGregor, Mats Ek, Sasha Waltz and Rudolf Nureyev.

Through Wiseman’s experienced, objective lens we see the heart and soul of a dance company striving together to uphold their historic international standard of excellence.

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LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman opens Friday, November 20th at Laemmle Theaters Music Hall in Beverly Hills, Town Center 5 in Encino, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and at the Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine.

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VideoDanza at MOLAA
Friday September 25, 6 PM doors (8:30 PM screening)

DCW announces its first collaboration with Museum of Latin American Art.  Join us for an evening of activities at MOLAA's En la Noche including VideoDanza presented by Dance Camera West and dancing by Viver Brasil. 

6:00 -7:30pm Happy Hour (no-host antojitos; bar compliments of Brown-Forman)
6:30 - 8:00pm Gallery Tour
7:30 - 8:30pm Adult Salsa Class w/ Josie Neglia
8:30 - 9:30pm Film Shorts – VideoDanza with Dance Camera West
9:30pm Performance by Viver Brasil (Sculpture Garden)

VideoDanza, a program of contemporary short dance films by artists from Latin American:

Flying Lesson (USA/Brazil, 2007) 4:35
Director: Rosane Chamecki
Choreographer: Andrea Lerner

Orillando (Argentina, 2006) 7:30
Director: Claudia Sánchez
Choreographer: Mónica Fracchia

The Swan vs. The Spider (Argentina, 2003) 3:00
Director: Pablo Rodriguez Jauregui
Choreographer: Gerardo Agudo

Units of Action (Brazil, 2007) 5:00
Director/Choreographer: Gabriela Trópia

FF>> (Brazil, 2007) 6:15
Director: Karenina de los Santos, Letícia Nabuco, Marcello Stroppa, Tatiana Gentile
Choreographer: Karenina de los Santos, Letícia Nabuco, Marcello Stroppa

Round en la Sombra (Mexico, 2007) 12:26
Director: Alfredo Salomón
Choreographer: Gilberto Gonzalez

Looking Forward (Brazil, 2007) 7:00
Director/Choreographer: Roberta Marques

La Casa (Uruguay, 2007) 4:00
Director: Juan Ignacio Fernández

Algunas Personas Haciendo Filosofia (Uruguay, 2005) 6:12
Director/Choreographer: Pablo Casacuberta

MOLAA (Museum of Latin American Art)
628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach, CA 90802
FREE Dance Camera West and MOLAA members
$10 Non-Members
RSVP to 562-437-1689 

Yvonne Rainer Retrospective (part 1 of 8)
Sunday October 4, 7:30 PM
Q&A follows with Yvonne Rainer and DCW's Director Lynette Kessler.

Dance Camera West with LA Filmforum
Presenting Five Easy Pieces: A compilation of five body-based early short films made between 1966 to 1969; including: Hand Movie, Volleyball (Foot Film), Rhode Island Red, Trio Film, and Line.  Also presenting After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid; combining a dance performance choreographed for Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project in 2000 with text by four radical artists who emerged from Vienna.

Five Easy Pieces: A compilation of five early short films made between 1966 to 1969.
Hand Movie (1966, 5:00, b&w, silent, 8mm to video)
Close-up of a hand, the fingers of which enact a sensuous dance.
Camerawork by William Davis.

Volleyball (Foot Film) (1967, 10:00 b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
A volleyball is rolled into the frame and comes to rest. Two legs in sneakers, seen from the knees down, enter the frame and stand beside it. Cut to new angle, same characters and actions.
Camerawork by Bud Wirtschafter.

Rhode Island Red (1968, 10:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
Ten minutes in an enormous chicken coop.
Camerawork by Roy Levin.

Trio Film (1968, 13:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
Two nudes, a man and a woman, interact with each other and a large balloon in a white living room. Performed by Steve Paxton and Becky Arnold.
Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

Line (1969, 10:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
A blond woman (Susan Marshall) in white pants and shirt interacts with a moving round object and the camera.
Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid (2002, 31 min, video)
Yvonne Rainer combines a dance performance she choreographed for Mikhail Barryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project in 2000 with texts by Oscar Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, Arnold Schoenberg, and Ludwig Wittgenstein—four of the most radical innovators in painting, architecture, music, and philosophy to emerge from fin-de-siècle Vienna. The dance contains, along with a variety of movement configurations, spoken lines derived from famous and unknown people's deathbed utterances. Charles Atlas and Natsuko Inue videotaped the rehearsals of the dance. The idea for integrating some of this footage with the Vienna material came partly from the title, which both elegaically and ironically invokes a passage through time and the end of a way of life, or, more to the point, aristocratic life. Thus the passage of Baryshnikov himself is also implicated—from danseur noble roles in classical ballet to his current interests in postmodern dance.

"Beyond the resonance of the title, however, the 21st century dance footage (itself containing 40-year-old instances of my 20th century choreography) can be read multifariously—and paradoxically—as both the beneficiary of a cultural and economic elite and as an extension of an avant-garde tradition that revels in attacking that elite and its illusions of order and permanency. Or, finally, each dance image can be taken simply as a graphic or mimetic correlation with its simultaneous text. "Some may say the avant-garde has long been over. Be that as it may, the idea of it continues to inspire and motivate many of us with its inducement—in the words of playwright/director Richard Foreman—to “resist the present.'"
—Yvonne Rainer

Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian
6712 Hollywood Blvd. at Las Palmas, Los Angeles

FREE Dance Camera West and Filmforum members

$10 General Admission, $6 Student/Seniors
Tickets will be sold at the door, box office will open at 6:30 PM
Reservations can be made by emailing: lafilmforum@yahoo.com
Reservations will be held until 7:15 PM
For tickets visit LA Filmforum table in the courtyard night of event.
For more information

Dancing on Site and on Camera
Wednesday November 4, 8:30 PM
Co-presented with Dance Camera West, a conversation and screening with Joanna Haigood, Stephan Koplowitz and David Rousseve.

Alpert Award-winning choreographers Joanna Haigood, Stephan Koplowitz and David Rousseve carry out a lively discussion about their practices and their far-ranging experience with the intersection of site-specific choreography and media, as demonstrated in film and video works screened by each of the three artists. The panel is introduced by CalArtsPresident Steven D. Lavine and moderated by Irene Borger, director of the Alpert Awards in the Arts.

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater)
Walk Disney Concert Hall Complex
631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
$10 General Admission, $5 Students, CalArts Free
For tickets and info

AFI FEST 2009

October 31, 2009 10 AM

Co-presented with Dance Camera West

Free Event

La Danse: Le Ballet De L'Opera De Paris

Directed by: Frederick Wiseman

With exquisite patience, Wiseman's masterful document of the creative process captures the bustle of activity - onstage and off - of the legendary Parisian company. 

No Dancing at the Mandrake: Round 3
Sunday November 15, 7 PM
21 and over only

An open forum community screening for new dance media work or work in progress. Work should not exceed 10 minutes. Please bring work formatted for DVD player.  This is a non-curated and no fee program; in fact, more like an open projector. 

This is a great opportunity to get feedback prior to submission deadline for DCW's June 2010 festival program of LOCAL MAKERS. 

Send required RSVP with: Your name, title of work, length, and brief film description to office@dancecamerawest.org

Mandrake Bar
2692 South La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034
(between Venice Blvd and Washington Blvd)
Free - No Reservations Needed - public audience invited

*Must be 21 yrs to enter