Breaking the Surface (2023)
"50" A Dance Film
a bar dance
“50” A Dance Film, was created in 2010. I took a sabbatical from Rutgers and traveled across the county filming in 50 separate locations. Each location corresponding to a year from my life, in chronological order. It might have been where I lived or someplace I visited that had a strong impact on me. The dance itself is one long fusion of movement I had created over the past 10 or 12 years. Snippets of stage choreography or movement from classes that fit will together. Like one long run on sentence of movement. The idea was to film in these 50 locations with seamless editing between locations that kept the flow of the movement unchanged. The Tux was my wife’s idea and I think pulled the disparate locations together very well. The music is a composition by my Rutgers colleague Tigger Benford from his album “Noise of Choice”.
A bar dance, was filmed in 2010 in the bar of the Sterling Hotel in Summit, NJ. I worked with 6 dancers and 4 musicians. We went to the bar on a Monday when they were closed and created and filmed everything in 4 hours. It was a whirlwind but a lot of fun. I did not go back to the footage for a couple of months then in one sitting edited this piece. Special thanks to the dancers and musicians who worked for peanuts, no literally peanuts... yah just kiddin.
danced by Heather Favretto, Kyle Marshall, Nicolas Sciscione, Pamelakim Sommer, Nicholas Ruiz, and Megan Woods. Music by Mike Gonzales performed by Jersey Minx.