Dancing with Animals (dance films screening)

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) Presents two short films about dancing with animals: “The Equus Projects Documentary” created by JoAnna Mendl Shaw (Gabe Bienczycki, cinematography) and “Together: Dancing with Spinner Dolphins” by Chisa Hidaka and Dolphin Dance Project. Although their stages are different — field and sea — they share the ability to commune with the animals around them. Both artists will appear in person to show additional footage as well as preview their next projects. Following the screenings, we invite you to stay for a short, informal conversation with the artists.

FILM+VIDEO SHOW & TELL is a new film series that aims to promote local and independent filmmakers, to nurture the film-loving community, and to create a serious and satisfying forum for the sharing of films and ideas.

About “Together: Dancing with Spinner Dolphins”

“When you approach dolphins with dance, they recognize it as intelligence. Meeting a wild dolphin eye to eye, it’s hard not to want to be more like her — more wild and more a part of the natural world.”

The Dolphin Dance project brings together talented human dancers and wild dolphins to create collaborative, inter-species artistic expressions – underwater ‘dances’ and films that document them. Inspired by the potential for profound inter-species communication, using the techniques of improvisational dance in place of words, we approach the work as a true collaboration between equal minds. “Together: Dancing with Spinner Dolphins” won “Best Experimental Film” at its world premiere at the Big Apple Film Festival. The film depicts the tender relationship forged between a human and a wild Spinner Dolphin through the language of dance.

http://dolphin-dance.org

About The Equus Projects Documentary

The Equus Projects Documentary is a short, non-narrative piece featuring the work of The Equus Projects and JoAnna Mendl Shaw. The company expores the kinetic relationship of dancers and horses.

Shot and edited by Gabriel Bienczycki • www.zebravisual.com
Music by Jami Sieber • www.jamisieber.com

The Equus Projects partners professional dancers with horses and their riders to create site-specific performance works that merge the artistry of dance with the athletics of equestrianism. The company creates works for arts and equine venues that are virtuosic and diverse, and exchanges dance and equestrian pedagogy with members of each field, to establish an interdisciplinary performance language.

http://www.dancingwithhorses.org