Short Films
Welcome to a selection of our short films. These are generally films under 10 minutes in duration. In this collection you will see films made by the Ballet Black company and also films that we think are important that have been created by former company dancers and friends.
Featured
This film is dedicated to the inspirational Filipino fashion designer, Jeffrey Rogador. My love. He and I would talk at our table about art, dance, fashion, and of course, love. His clothes were for everyone and this dance is for everyone.
Jeffrey Rogador (1978-2020)
LIKE WATER acknowledges the resilience of our ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. A world unkind to our people, yet somehow we survive. A world that that has conditioned us to not see the beauty of our skin, hair, culture and our people. But like water we flow, like water we change shape. We remain resilient.
"For Those Who Struggle With Life." - A collaboration between founding Ballet Black dancer & actor Jake Nwogu and Filmmaker & Director Dan Lowenstein, with Music by Mad EP
During a difficult period of my life, I had a series of panic attacks, to a point that my body shook uncontrollably. Sometimes I was so broken that I couldn't focus my mind, and other times my mind worked but the shaking continued. I asked Film Maker Daniel Lowenstein to capture one of these episodes.
The symptoms in this film are genuine and I continued to shake between takes. However, I managed to use the shaking to inform some of the movement.
With the awful moments comes amazing life lessons.
Therefore life is always amazing, even if it doesn't seem to be at the time. - Jake Nwogu
Directed, Shot & Cut by Dan Lowenstein - Film Director http://www.danlowenstein.com/
Music by Mad EP https://soundcloud.com/mad-ep
During a difficult period of my life, I had a series of panic attacks, to a point that my body shook uncontrollably. Sometimes I was so broken that I couldn't focus my mind, and other times my mind worked but the shaking continued. I asked Film Maker Daniel Lowenstein to capture one of these episodes.
The symptoms in this film are genuine and I continued to shake between takes. However, I managed to use the shaking to inform some of the movement.
With the awful moments comes amazing life lessons.
Therefore life is always amazing, even if it doesn't seem to be at the time. - Jake Nwogu
Directed, Shot & Cut by Dan Lowenstein - Film Director http://www.danlowenstein.com/
Music by Mad EP https://soundcloud.com/mad-ep
“Mute” – written and directed by Mark Donne Segment piece from wider film installation “Listening With Frontiersman” commissioned by Estuary Festival. Directors note: The piece looks slightly “warped” on a flat screen as it was shot anamorphically and projected in vast scale with an anamorphic projector (to the curve of the ancient Fort wall) for impact. ‘Sound On’ to listen to the ambient sounds of the estuary and Cira’s movement. Written and Directed: Mark Donne DOP: Mark Nutkins Samples: Thom Yorke Sound Recordist & Design: Jim Carey Connell/Inventive Audio Editor: Joe Morris Dancer: Cira Robinson
“The series was really about the nebulous idea of borders and zones, and the less than nebulous execution of the rules relating to them by those who get to apply them. Watching “Mute” again after some time, now in lockdown, I yearn, first and foremost, for the space, seascape, solitude and sheer purpose and beauty of each of Cira’s expressions and movements. Secondly, what travels is the theme of peril and danger, and the total (thematic) contrast of fleeing home to save your life, with staying at home for the same purpose. Viewed like that, our current sacrifice seems reduced? And thirdly, the defiance and resilience of Cira performing in silence, on a treacherous waterway, with a tide incoming, directly in front of a live missile testing range! There’s something in that resilience and defiance we might apply when facing this horrible, microscopic murdering pathogen” – Mark Donne
Read more about Marks piece through his narrative ‘A Modern Water Story’
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