AFTER the success of the inaugural Light Moves Screen Dance Festival in Limerick last year, Dance Limerick will again host the festival next week. It will feature 55 works by 92 international artists from 27 countries, plus 24 speakers sharing their knowledge at the ScreenDance Lab, Symposium and Festival.
by Eric FitzGerald
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“ScreenDance is films/videos which deal with movement as their central focus instead of dialogue. Screendance is about what movement can bring to play,” explained Jürgen Simpson who co-curates the festival.
Now in its second year, Light Moves is Ireland’s only festival dedicated to dance on film and video art with movement as a central theme. It is a response to the vibrant and expanding area of dance film/ screendance in Ireland. Expect short films and feature films, art installations and workshops for young people aged three to 11.
Reaction to last year’s festival was overwhelmingly positive especially from those who had travelled to attend, according to festival producer Jenny Traynor.
“They were very impressed with the programme and very impressed that it included a symposium and a lab. They were impressed with the focus on films that are led by dance and movement and the transdisciplinary nature of it.”
Elements of ScreenDance are in every day culture from hip hop dance videos to ballet on screen to the silent films era of Charlie Chaplin. The experimentation and originality of ScreenDance films on show here will perhaps inspire the mainstream music videos of tomorrow. It takes a team to produce a ScreenDance film, a collaborative effort from choreographer and filmmaker and editor.
“It is an art form in itself,” Jenny explains. “You can make something on screen that you cannot create live. The focus of this festival is the appeal of being able to make something different, to push boundaries.”
Highlights of this year’s programme include the European premiere of ‘24 Frames Per Second’, a multi-arts commission by Carriageworks, Australia’s leading contemporary arts centre and a special screening in Dance Limerick of Matthew Barney’s ‘Drawing Restraint 9’, and children’s workshops.
Leading figures in the dance/screendance and performance world will share their experiences during the weekend. British choreographer Siobhan Davies will be in public conversation with the Light Moves curators. Siobhan’s work with David Hinton, The Running Tongue, will be shown at Light Moves as part of the Carriageworks/24 Frames Per Second project. Performance artist Nigel Rolfe will give a talk entitled ‘The Caught In Between’.
Young explorers
A WORKSHOP for young explorers (7-11 yrs) invites budding artists to create sound for film with acclaimed Hungarian sound artist Slawek Kwi, who has lived in Ireland for many years.
In Slawek’s own words he makes, “sound paintings or cinema for the ears”. He will lead a workshop making a soundtrack for a dance film.
For smaller children (3-6 yrs), dance artist and teacher Rachel Sheil will lead an interactive workshop encouraging creative movement through story-based dance improvisations.
The Workshops will be held in The Hunt Museum on Saturday November 21 from 11am. Places for these workshops can be booked through the Light Moves website, http://lightmoves.ie.
Light Moves 2015 takes place at Dance Limerick, St. John’s Church and Limerick School of Art & Design on Thursday November 19 to Sunday November 22.
Festival Highlights
Drawing Restraint 9
(Saturday 8pm)
A festival highlight is Matthew Barney’s ‘Drawing Restraint 9’’ from his ongoing series, begun in 1987. The film seeks to explore “resistance as a pre-requisite for development and a vehicle for creativity”. In this experimental film Matthew Barney and singer/composer Bjork board a Japanese whaling vessel and don wedding clothing for a special ceremony. A must see for anyone with an appreciation of art and design.
Installations will be in LSAD and at Dance Limerick Studio from 10am daily and are free to the public. An Outdoor Projection will be on view at Lower Cecil Street from 4.30pm every day.
Anna Karenina
(Sunday at 4pm)
Anna Karenina is a 2012 epic British film directed by Joe Wright. Adapted by Tom Stoppard from Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel and choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the film depicts the tragedy of Russian aristocrat and socialite Anna Karenina. Sunday at 4pm at Dance Limerick.
Film Screenings happen daily at Dance Limerick where five or six short Screendance films lasting 5-6 minutes are shown in one sitting, a great way to introduce yourself to Screendance. Even if something isn’t your cup of tea, you are not stuck with it for too long.
