Posts in Category: Dance

Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods by Tishani Doshi

2 April, 2019 - Leave a comment - Posted in Dance, Videopoems
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Indian poet and fiction writer Tishani Doshi dances the title poem from her third collection in this film by Gareth M Davies. The music was composed by Luca Nardon.

I’ve featured a lot of unique dance poetry videos here over the years, but this is certainly one of the most powerful — perhaps because the poet herself is the dancer and choreographer. This doesn’t feel like an interpretation of the poem so much as the poem itself in a different form.

Never Say Never Say Never by Patrick James Errington

22 September, 2018 - Leave a comment - Posted in Dance, Videopoems
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From British director Adele Myers, a film based on a poem by Patrick James Errington. Here’s the description from Vimeo:

Savouring their last moments, a couple struggle with letting go. They must, but breaking up is hard to do.

This short film is based on an original poem written by Patrick Errington. The poem was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2016, Poetry Society (UK). This film was commissioned by FilmPoem and original adaptation was produced entirely in Fujairah UAE.

The actors are Layla Al Khouri and Sanoop Din. For a full list of credits, see Poetry Film Live.

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Elephant by Elisabet Velasquez

29 March, 2018 - 1 Comment - Posted in Dance, Performance Poetry, Videopoems
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Brooklyn-based Puerto Rican poet Elisabet Velasquez took the top prize in Button Poetry’s 2017 Video Contest with Elephant, which she calls

a short choreo-film entirely produced by women of color against street harassment. The video is the collective effort of a group of interdisciplinary artists from New York City who came together to highlight the importance of looking at street harassment from a lens of reclamation of power.

We believe that all people who identify as women as well as gender nonconforming individuals who are impacted by street harassment have a right to their bodies and in this video we take our bodies back.

If you or any one you know has been impacted by street harassment in any way we invite you to share.

Peruvian filmmaker Connie Chavez directed the film and Keomi Tarver is the dancer and choreographer, with body art by Alicia C. Cobb.

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Goraikou by Eleni Cay

21 December, 2017 - Leave a comment - Posted in Author-made videopoems, Dance
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Slovakian poet Eleni Cay‘s latest dancepoem video features dancer Roberta Stepankova. The text appears in her third and latest pamphlet (chapbook), A Small Love Dictionary Of Untranslatable Japanese Words.

shhh! by Leah Thorn

2 December, 2017 - Leave a comment - Posted in Dance, Performance Poetry, Videopoems
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A dance-infused poetry film by Leah Thorn and filmmaker Clare Unsworth about the systematic silencing of women — and the need to rebel against it. Leah told me in an email,

The poem was written out of a passion to challenge the invisibility of the many ways women are silenced and I tried it out in performance with many different audiences of women – in schools, universities, feminist groups, at poetry events and in prison. Clare and I then collaborated with three drama students at the University of Kent, Canterbury, England who interpreted the poem through movement.

This locally-produced, no-budget film has been screened internationally at feminist film festivals.

The dancer/choreographers are Kristin Bacheva, Vanessa Owusu and Elle Payne. The sound is by Daniel Battersby, with music by Jahzzar and Ars Sonor.

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Dancing Lesson by Rachel Kann

24 October, 2017 - Leave a comment - Posted in Dance, Videopoems
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I’ve been championing the dance category of videopoetry for years, so I was pleased to see this worthy representative of it take the top honors at last weekend’s Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival. Written and performed by “modern-day mystic” Rachel Kann, with choreography by her and Jhon Gonzalez, and directed by Brad (Bradford L.) Cooper, it won Best Overall Production and Best Sound/Music (the work of Cooper and Atom Smith). See YouTube for the complete credits and Hevria for the text.

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Sun-Earth Diglossia by Eleni Cay

21 June, 2017 - Leave a comment - Posted in Author-made videopoems, Dance
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This is the latest and last in Slovakian poet Eleni Cay‘s “celestial dialogues” series of dancepoems. She describes the project on her website:

I’m proud to be part of the generation who challenge discriminatory forms of sharing and creating poetry. I’m particularly interested in spaces that augment content and form into novel poetic genres. In my dancepoems, I’ve been experimenting with music, dance and poetry to see if carefully controlled convergence of three arts can give rise to a new poetic experience.

Between 2015 and 2017, I was fortunate to work with three very talented dancers. The theme binding our three dancepoems together is celestial dialogues- conversations between The Sun and The Earth, The Moon and The Sun, and The Earth and The Moon. When thinking about these conversational duets, the search for a ying-yang balance becomes a quest for unity and departure from human-imposed hierarchies.

If the Earth spoke to the Moon, what would she say? And if the Moon talked to the Sun, would they remember the times when they were one? The perennial themes of love and separation somewhat always find their way into a poem…

Dual Focus Media shot the video, with music by Armand Amar. Cay’s dance partner, Dickson Mbi, was the choreographer, and Christian Payne provided the voiceover.

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