The action and subject: Dance: the instinctive desire to explain words by gestures of the entire body. Since Plato set down that phrase and danced his last,
“the entire body” of which he spoke evolved an appendage no Ancient Greek might have imagined: the camera. Philosophers, makers, choreographers and every form of dancer found behind a mechanized lens a new partner to embellish their gestures, and capture with rhythm, light and ground glass the artist’s desire to speak with movement. In these crafty shorts, dance is the action and subject, the tool, the context, the means to an expression of lust, abandon, self-doubt, self-love, confusion, myth or madness, occasionally the whole story, though often merely emotion inside a motion. Performer and artist Doris Humphrey proclaimed, “There are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words.” In that spirit, behold...
Curated by the Festival Programming Committee.
TRT: 82 Min.

LIVE ACTION!
That’s right, folks! Tonight’s show
will be hosted by Downtown’s one
and only mixed-gender, all-nude
dance troupe, The Dazzle Dancers, beglittered and twitching vigorously!
Plus, a live dance performance by the
stunning Ryan Lawrence!
Jinx
Karel Doing & Lieber Gorilla, 2005, Netherlands, film, color, sound, 9:00
The Jinx is stronger than two breathtaking women.
Invitation
Michael V. Smith, 2007, Canada, video, color, sound, 5:40
Continuing his performance-based work, Michael V. Smith has created a confessional nude dance video.
Boy Smoking, Girl Dancing
David J. White, 2007, USA, video, B/W, sound, 4:10
Evoking Warhol’s Superstars, the image of an elfin boy smoking dissolves slowly into the blue-tinted, dreamy sight of a gyrating ingenue.
 
Lucy And Those Eyes
Marijo St. Amour
2006, Canada, video, color, sound, 13 min.
A story of love and circus shot in a melancholic Montreal winter.
Light, Body, Corpuscles
Antonin De Bemels in collaboration with Gordon Delap, 2004, Belgium, video, color, sound, 6:00
A play with light, enabling the discovery of a real body, one caught in a frenzied dance between feminine and masculine.
Uropop
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, 2006, France/Canada, video, color, sound, 1:30
The pause that refreshes.
Oh, You Pretty Things
Michael Alen, 2007, Canada, video, color, sound, 13:00
Told in a collage of sound and vision, a chronicle of the enchantment and disintegration of a relationship built on very different and questionable drives.
Nummer Twee
Guido van der Werve, 2003, Netherlands, film, color, sound, 3:08
When Guido van der Werve is hit by a car, it’s not unusual for dancing ballerinas to take their leave of him.
If Anyone Should Happen to Get in My Way
Freeshow Seymour (Allyson Mitchell + Christina Zeidler), 2003, Canada, film, color, sound, 2:25
Even the camera dances as a furry friend lays down a few ground rules.
Rosebud
Ricky Kelley & Scott Ross, USA, video, color, sound, 16:00
Smoking sailors and a muse born of the sea enchant and bewilder a searching romantic.
Hot Pants
Peter DeRome, 1971, USA, film, color, sound, 5:45
A fan of J.B.’s groove shakes his funky joie de vivre, gettin’ down, naked and off to the beat.