Let’s dance… and it’s a… wrap!
It is a charming marriage of the art of dance and the “7th art” - video to be specific. Videodance is a new hybrid art form that overcomes the ephemeral nature of a dance performance, can potentially help spread the art of dance to a broader audience - crossing the limits imposed by geography and time - and, at the same time, function as an opportunity to explore new means of communication through new expressive tools of narration, even by combining different forms of art.
This is the second year that the ATHENS VIDEO DANCE PROJECT team are coming the Thessaloniki to guide us through this new form of expression, where dance meets cinema, in the art of videodance. The audience will have the opportunity to attend two days of short video screenings. There will be 24 pieces from 15 countries (Greece, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Israel, India, the Netherlands, Norway and China), while each evening will close with two short dance films.
In Greece, the AVDP is the International Dance Film Festival, which is held every year in Athens in cooperation with the Athens School of Fine Arts Theatre. It is an annual creative platform that reveals the new trends and offers professionals and students an outlet for research and experimentation.
Starting off from the hope that dance and cinema will be able to conquer a new stage of creative exchange, the AVDP began developing its action on 4 axes in 2010: the annual AVDP festival, the AVDP.edu educational programme, the AVDP on TouR touring programme, and AVDP in Community, in the framework of which 2 screening nights are organised in cooperation with the 51st Dimitria.
Each night's programme is different and includes the screening of short videodance pieces (45 minutes), a 10 minute break and a screening of 2 short dance films (30 minutes). Specifically, on the first night an abandoned pool is transformed into a battleground for the teenage 'Sink or Swim' dancers – a coproduction of the Dutch Media Fund of the Performing Arts Fund, NTR state television channel and Dutch Cinedans – Dance On Screen festival. Next up is Clara van Gool, well known from her long partnership with DV8, directing the wonderful Jordi Cortés and Damián Muñoz in 'Coup de Grâce', a duel – duet which was originally a live performance and later turned into a dance film.
On the second night, the intensely political 'Mortality not Fighting' is dominated by choreography that combines post modern dance and 'Pa Kua Chang' martial arts' culture, while 'Beach Party Animal' is a portrait film of British eccentricity and life on Brighton beach. Where the land meets the sea and people come to observe and be observed: a series of steady cinematic shots, “collecting” private moments in public spaces.
