Film+Video Show & Tell #6: Kinetic Cinema

Kinetic Cinema is a screening series of Pentacle’s Movement Media, in which different guest artists are invited to share films and videos that have inspired their work in dance and media. On December 3rd, Kinetic Cinema will be curated by Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, a New York-based contemporary dance theatre company that has developed a unique process using Skype to create new work during the temporary relocation of Artistic Director Samar Haddad King to Palestine.

In October the company will premiere their latest performance project, Bound at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, examining the lives of nine individuals living under occupation. For Kinetic Cinema, they will provide a demonstration of their unique working technique with Samar Haddad King live on Skype, along with a curated selection of videos related to Bound. Photo by Sara Genoves-Slyvan.

This Kinetic Cinema screening is a co-presentation of Pentacle’s Movement Media and CRS.

FILM+VIDEO SHOW & TELL provides a forum for local and independent filmmakers and video artists to share and discuss their work and ideas. Each month we’ll screen one or more works and then circle up for an intimate conversation with the artists or guest speaker. We’ll focus on “art” films, both abstract and and narrative, primarily by local filmmakers but with a mix of hard-to-find foreign classics, and new documentaries. This group is open to and for both film lovers and film/video artists. In fact, we really want you guys to bring films (your own or work by others that you want to support) to us that you would like us to screen.

About Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre is committed to collaborating with artists across disciplines, cultural geographies, and physical borders in order to forge stimulating and transformative experiences through dance. Inspired by world events as well as personal histories, YSDT offers an intimate glimpse into the countless faces of humanity using their athletic, off-balance and highly emotive choreography style. Told through linear, tangential and stream-of-consciousness narratives, these multi-vocal works layer the textures of dynamic movement and eclectic sound scores into poetic landscapes that illuminate the before untold stories of individuals and communities around the world. YSDT was founded in 2005 and is a not for profit organization based in New York City.

YSDT has performed throughout New York City in the Downtown Dance Festival, Whitewave Festival, Joyce SoHo, HarlemStage, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s Little Theatre and Mainstage Theatre, Queens Museum of Art, and Tribeca Performing Arts Center; in Becket, MA at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Festival; Columbus, OH at Fisher Theatre and BalletMet Performance Space; abroad in Amman, Jordan at King Hussein Cultural Center; Zarqa, Jordan at King Abdullah Cultural Center; Irbid, Jordan at Yarmouk University; East Jerusalem at al-Hakawati Palestinian National Theatre; Ramallah, Palestine at Al-Kasaba Theatre; and Bethlehem, Palestine at The Peace Center. YSDT has been awarded space residencies from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Queens Museum of Art, and Tribeca Performing Arts Center; and grants awarded by the US State Department, New York Foundation for the Arts, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Manhattan Community Arts Fund, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

About Samar Haddad

Samar graduated cum-laude with honors in choreography from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program under the tutelage of Kazuko Hirabayashi. She has studied composition under Kazuko Hirabayashi and Joanna Mendl-Shaw, the Forsythe modalities with Helen Pickett and improvisation with Joanna Mendl-Shaw. In the spring of 2005, Samar was selected as an Emerging Choreographer for E-Moves at Aaron Davis Hall (now HarlemStage). Soon after, her work was commissioned by contemporary ballet company Configuration Dance in Cape Cod, then under the direction of Kathy Batchellor and Joseph Cipolla. In the same year, Samar received the year long Swing Space Grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in collaboration with the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. During this residency, Samar formed Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre. In 2006 Samar was presented by Joyce SoHo as an emerging choreographer in their annual Joyce SoHo Presents series. Later in that same year, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre self-presented a full season at Joyce SoHo. She has taught repertory, improvisation, and technique workshops in Amman, Jordan; Bethlehem and Ramallah, Palestine; Burgos and Valencia, Spain; and Huntington, England. She has created five solos commissioned by graduating seniors of the Ailey School and was selected to participate in E-Moves as an Evolving Artist in April 2009. In 2010, she was the recipient of the National Choreography Competition for Hubbard Street 2, under the direction of Taryn Kaschock Russell, where she created a new work for the company.

Pentacle’s Movement Media programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.