Join us at 8P for the premiere of our new film, “Sidelined,” on Vimeo. After four tedious months of remote editing, we’ve finally completed our film, “Sidelined.” Using raw footage shot on 2/5, long before we were sidelined, — this short film revolves around the themes of quarantine and the pandemic. It started out loosely based on the idea of the lack of spirituality in our society today, but unconsciously, there was something being channeled that cold, winter day. As the days and months unfolded into the crisis our world was facing, the film’s fate twisted into new meaning. Read our blog about the details of the film shoot day here. Take a sneak peek into some of the images of that day here.
Thursday, 7/30 at 7:50: Join Mitzi for a small chat about the process prior to the screening on FB live on Adams Company Dance’s FB page: https://www.facebook.com/adamscompanydance/live (and then go to Vimeo).
Our film will be LIVE at 8P: Go to: https://vimeo.com/440838786 and press PLAY — and by all means, let me know what you thought!
This pandemic has us all needing to adjust and adapt to other ways of thinking and doing. If we can let go of our preconceived notions of normal, then we might just start to see life unfold in new and different ways, which could actually serve us. Resting, napping, cleaning clutter, and exercising have never felt so good. Folding laundry can be meditative if you can allow yourself to ponder the folds and textures of the fabrics. Same goes with editing remotely. I didn’t think I could do it with my editor, (Faith Marek), so well, but as it turns out — the slowed-down, nitty-gritty approach is making me focus more.
The film we shot in February came out of the can, finally! It’ll be laborious to work remotely, no doubt, but that requires more patience, and won’t that be a good lesson? Dancers have a built-in adaptation process. If they didn’t, they’d never survive the demands of the art, but adapting at home now, while no teacher or director is telling them what to do, will be the most challenging time for them. Self-discipline is the key to this make it through this time, and it is my wish for all dancers to keep taking class with great teachers out there remotely — at least in the meantime!
And, in the meantime, enjoy a few of these shots from our film shoot! Previews from coming attractions below:
L to R: Abby, Yasmin, Mitzi, Tsubasa, Misaki, Heidi Post shoot at The Oysterman’s Pearl Studio
It’s an unprecedented time in our world where announcements to isolate and social distance from one another is our new norm. In December 2019, I had three dreams foretelling about this time, complete with tales of assembly lines for vaccinations for a flu; food insecurity; and my work falling by the wayside. I was unconsciously prepared, just as with my dreams prior to 9/11, where the events that unfolded were described in my night vision. Turning back the calendar page to February 5th’s Jiffy-Mix film project, I was apparently channeling ideas that had been in those December dreams, unbeknownst to me. So much symbolism to follow.
Just last month, the project I did with five willing and able dancers who trained it up to Bridgeport, CT from the city, was apparently being channeled. Other than a few loose fragments of thoughts about how society needs to come together spiritually, I had no detailed pre-determined script of what I was about to do. From my research, I had found this incredible Victorian mansion in Bridgeport some months prior, where multiple businesses occupy the floors, but the upper floor literally floored me!
It’s a cavernous space with beautiful stained glass windows wrapping around the perimeter, with dazzling panoramic views, old wooden floors, and a dome-like structure in one corner that could be nothing other than a widow’s walk. The room is used for various events, including a church group that meets there on a semi-regular basis. “The Oysterman’s Pearl Studio,” is the name of the space, aptly termed after a wealthy oysterman who peddled oysters along the Northeast corridor back in the day. They made a killing with their trade, as the architecture of the room so richly displays. The space itself inspired the idea of spirituality, which I feel we embraced, but toward the middle part of my project that day, I had the dancers running and leaping while I shouted, “imagine you’re panicked about something,” — obviously the inspiration was not feeling spiritual then. We were even rehearsing to David Bowie’s piece Lazurus, from his last album Dark Star, which invokes the idea of death and perhaps dark nights of the soul. Weird, eh? There was a palpable feeling of fear in the air. Virus??
Then, at one point I had a dancer looking like he was dying, perhaps a little Jesus-y on-the-cross– feeling, but he was laying on the ground, (not on a cross), writhing and contorting, until the other dancers finally came to him and made human connection. Hmmm– front-line emergency workers? At another point I had all the dancers looking out the window, stretching their hands and arms upward on the stained glass windows, as if to look like they were stuck inside and couldn’t go out. Social distancing?
Wildly symbolic of a pandemic, the material on the camera was downloaded to a corrupt harddrive. What?? I was about to begin editing with my editor extraordinaire, Faith Marek, just a couple short weeks after our shoot, when we encountered a glitch that disallowed us to see any of the footage she had shot. COVID-19 had corrupted the harddrive? Wait, and that’s not all. So, the harddrive was sent to CA to a harddrive retrieval business, where they gave her an astronomical estimate for the work. As her personal files were also on that harddrive, she had to bite the bullet and get the job done. After weeks of not knowing anything, I finally found out that my project had been saved, but my editor’s files were not scanned properly… more symbolism (?) — some people are spared by the virus, and some don’t make it.
This “art imitating life” reality is really quite amazing. At the moment in time I found out my work was spared, we had already started to isolate from one another, so with the inability to get together physically with my editor, my work was temporarily put on hold. I suppose I could work remotely, but I’m reluctant to succumb to that method, being I’m such a hands-on person… whah, whah — I’m not liking all this virtual do-it-on-Zoom stuff. Put on hold is the new way of life now. My business is that way, as with everyone else who is a non-essential, self-employed person — so what now?
A loaded question, right? Perhaps we need to return to the symbolism of “The Oysterman’s Pearl Studio,” with the panoramic, stained glass windows, for The answers: We have all around us the comforts of Mother Nature, with all her colors of the rainbow stretching before us like a kaleidoscope of hope in the darkness of the night. And, yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no fever, for thou art with me thy rod and art they comfort me…
Mother Nature is probably giving us a big kick in the pants charging us to love one another, and develop more unity within the world. She got too hot with global warming and needed us to STOP everything. “I’ll give you this virus so you can re-think, reconfigure, and re-establish what your real goals should be moving forward.” Aren’t we all called to do that now? I’m thinking, yes. And, one thing on my list is crafting a new short-film from all this footage from February 5th. Btw, that’s my birthday — hmmmm… symbolic?
My dancers and me post-production in the “green room” Misaki Hayama, Heidi Sutherland, Abby Marchesseault, Yasmin Venable, Tsubasa Nishioka
Stay tuned for the finished project, hopefully soon!
Behind the Lens: Adams Company Dance at the Bowtie Criterion Cinema
Fall has always been a fertile time for me. The harvesting of artistic endeavors with the crisp autumn air seems to be the perfect mix. October 10th was a day to remember. With fits and starts to the day, the final showtime at 7:00p at the Bowtie Criterion Cinema in Greenwich went off without a hitch. Well… there were some hitches, but what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, shall we say. Describing the events leading up to “pressing play” will remain in the vault, but I will share this one funny incident. Well, not so funny to me at the time, but it proved to be a talking point after the show.
The projectionist was using his laptop with my portable hard drive plugged into it. He said he put it in airplane mode, but did he? While in the middle of one of my films, Ancestry.com downloaded and covered the screen with all the details of the projectionist’s profile. 911! He was out of the room managing other films at the time, so I texted him, “hurry quick!” About a one and a half minutes went by until he rectified the situation and got things back to normal. It seemed like an eternity to me. The biggest joke going around afterward was, “imagine if he had erectile dysfunction in his genetic make-up!” Okay, don’t sweat the small stuff. It all went well in the end and everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, despite the hiccup.
Our new partner, Greenwich’s Neighbor-to Neighbor, attended and spoke prior to the film about their organization and how there’s real need even in affluent Greenwich. ACD in association with Peace Community Chapel, stipulated in our event that our film night would donate half of the proceeds to them. It was a real eye opener to have their director describe in detail about food insecurity in the town. We all were so humbled and grateful to know that what we were doing was serving the greater good of humanity.
Behind the Lens, already having had three runs in NYC prior, gained a few films in the line-up, somehow completing a big cycle for me, with my final film, “Crooked Dreams,” taking front and center in my schedule this Fall. I took out my documentary on the making of a dance, leaving room to fill in the space with the newer films I’ve created. Blending the old with the new seemed to round out the evening, and I owe everything to my executive editor, Faith Marek, without whom I couldn’t have pulled this off. We spent hours and hours editing, and enjoying dinners together, as we witnessed the days getting shorter in the process.
It may seem from the outside looking in that I have all my ducks in a row, that I’m highly organized, and endowed financially to be able to produce the way I do. A big NO! My brother once gave nicknames to all my family members when we were young. My nickname was “beautiful mess.” Indeed, that’s me. All the stars have to be aligned to produce a film, but trust me, I continually was off in outer space getting caught in one black hole after the next to make them. My karma has been to have no umbrella, but good visibility in the rain — to have no idea where I’m headed, but to end up in the right place — to have only two nickels to rub together, but to end up abundantly pleased. The messiness of life has stirred-up my inner terrain a large percentage of the time — the advantage; however, is that it colors all that I’ve created, and with this Fall of 2019… all is at its peak!
Jeremy Neal, Paulo Gutierrez, Annie Heinemann, Heidi Sutherland
With many obstacles before me from last July til now, I finally was able to finish my film, “Something Fake.”Though we shot the footage last summer, my editor had moved from Connecticut to NYC, so finding the time to get together with her proved to be a challenge. In fact, the slow burn to the finish line probably got me a bit weary to create a shorter version, which I’m sure would’ve gone over better in the end than what I produced, but c’est la vie!
The symbolism of the piece unraveled in the editing sessions, where the emergence of the story occurred. The sections I choreographed were not purposely supposed to depict the Republicans and Democrats, but with the overt colors of red and blue from my film shoot, I couldn’t help but use that platform to construct ideas based upon the divisiveness of Congress; the red, hot topic of Russian collusion; and the inane ‘wall,’ depicted through the outdoor fence I found outside the theater. The flowing, red cloth in the film, seen in other works of mine, took on an entirely new meaning — Russian collusion. The staring eye through this thin red veil, reveals the evil eye of corruption.
Under my direction that day, the scenes I worked out were loosely inspired by the Helsinki Summit where President Trump ‘misspoke.’ Google it. At the time, it seemed to me that there was no other evidence needed to indict our President. Treason seemed palpable, but as the calendar pages turned, my coup de gras Helsinki Summit film theme, became lost in the shuffle of our 36-hour news cycle. More importantly, though, is the common thread of injustice in our government; and, as the bar for democracy is lowered, the level of farcical humor in our media is raised. As the children of our future will be learning about our current administration through social media, YouTube, and perhaps, artistic endeavors… keeping it all straight in the age of fake news will be their obstacle to sift through. If viewing this film can pair our day and age with a seed of truth, then I guess what I’ve done could be pivotal for future generations. And if not, art for art’s sake apparently is still in vogue!
