What do you do when you find yourself alone on a usually crowded subway car? If you’re anything like us, you dance. Set in in the wee hours of a Manhattan night, this short film captures a tired businessman dancing his worries away, then coolly stepping off onto the platform like it never happened. Performed […]

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrates the 50th anniversary of one of its seminal works Cry with a new filmed version, performed by Jacqueline Green. It’s currently streaming for free on the company’s YouTube channel until May 22. At the time Cry was choreographed in 1971, Josephine Baker was perhaps the only Black woman dancer […]

On a carpet of pink Easter grass, the silly and the serious grip GroundWorks DanceTheater‘s dancers in “Pony.” Choreographed, written and directed by Hannah Garner, of 2nd Best Dance Company, the 18-minute dance film, says Garner, “is an absurd, nonsensical, useless coping mechanism for the moment… it’s about being inflexible but learning to change.” More […]

The past school year has not exactly been…normal. Rather than fight the constraints brought on by COVID-19, University of North Carolina School of the Arts interim dean of dance Jared Redick decided to embrace them. He reached out alum Garen Scribner, who made The Australian Ballet’s brilliant “Wilis in Corps-en-tine” film last year along with […]

One of Dance Magazine‘s 2020 “25 to Watch,” choreographer Jay Carlon has brought his transporting theatricality to film. In “BAGGAGE,” he shares the story of his parents’ immigration to the U.S. from the Philippines. The sound design by Alex Wand (who also composed and performs the music) includes interview recordings and voice messages from Carlon’s […]

When even a blink of the eyes is musical, you know the details of a work have been thoroughly thought through. In Madison Elliott’s “Empty Vessel,” directed by Taylor Yocum and set to Hobo Johnson’s “February 15th,” the camera only catches movement from the waist up, but every body part seen is strategically engaged—and every […]

Looking for a lesson on self-expression? Seven-year-old Adeline Kerry Cruz serves it up straight with her gripping performance in this film, titled “Sit Still.” Choreographed by krumper Russell “Gutta” Ferguson (Season 6 winner of “So You Think You Can Dance”) and directed by Vincent René-Lortie, the work captures the frustration, loneliness and vulnerability that just […]

“Butterflies go through a metamorphosis in their life, and I feel like I definitely have gone through one in mine,” British dancer Sharifa Butterfly, formerly Sharifa Tonkmor, says in the film “i, Butterfly.” The film follows her on a journey searching for her identity, and ultimately, finding a family in the Rain Crew, a group […]