WILD CLARITY, 2015-2017
A Collection of Short Films That Represent Day-Long Visions in Specific Sites Throughout Pittsburgh, Made in Collaboration With The Performers.
(These are and are not about dance.)
THE ELEVATOR, 2015 - 2017
Starring Jasmine Hearn as Sable
Score by Jasmine Hearn
1 minute-excerpt, silent
2017 Edited Versions:
10 minute single channel version
1 hour multi-channel version with 5 long continuous shots
Synopsis: The elevator transports Sable through marble halls, staircases, spray fountains, sidewalks, and overgrown lots. She is inside and outside of time. The body is a continuous vessel. Everything is found in movement towards the body of our own truth.
METRONOME BODY, 2016 - 2017
Starring Gia Cacalano as GA/DEZ
Score by slowdanger
1 minute-excerpt, silent
2017 Edited Versions:
10 minute single channel version
1 hour multi-channel version with 5 long continuous shots
Synopsis: GA/DEZ was born in the city and lived in the woods. Her mother was an outlaw and her father was a painter. There were no words in her diet only apples. I found her here and followed her through the park.
WATER SLOWLY NOW, 2016 - 2017
Starring slowdanger as A T/ T A
Score by slowdanger
1 minute excerpt, silent
2017 Edited Versions:
10 minute single channel version
1 hour multi-channel version with 5 long continuous shots
Synopsis: AT/TA is one body in two bodies in two hundred bodies in earth body in female body in human body in queer body in male body in all bodies. We follow them down the steps to the bridge to the water. Slowness and stillness and breath and the dualistic body are the elements of this work.
(THE LONG SONG) ---> AMERICAN PSALM, Part 1,
2016-2017
With performances by: 1Hood artists VUDULUC, Idasa Tariq, Livefromthecity,and Tyhir Frost;
Sean Beauford; Scott Andrew; Jil Stifel; Jean Paul Weaver; Celeste Neuhaus; Gizelxanath and Ben Barson; Roberta and Anthony Williams; Joy KMT; Michael David Battle; Eric Weidenhof; Roberta Guido;Anthony Williams; Oreen Cohen; Bitter Whiskers: Tessa Barber, Emily Fear, James Fear; Anna Elder & Co.; Caleb Gamble & Co.; Manny Theiner; Eric Singer
1 minute excerpt, with sound
2017 Edited Versions:
Currently in post-production
Synopsis: The Long Song stretched over 1.5 miles along Penn Avenue and featured over 20 artists on a hot day in July 2016. It was a complex failure, a strange experiment, a possible template. It survived as American Psalm, Part 1.
WILD CLARITY, 2015-2017
A COLLECTION OF SHORT FILMS BASED ON DAY-LONG VISIONS OF SITE-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCES
Filmed in high definition video
Cinematography by Rafael Abreu Canedo
Production by Gretchen Neidert
Production Assistants: Jess Horn, Travis Mitzel, Nico Segall, Brennan Maine, Lisa Ramsey, Alex Frontera, Angela Semple, Emily Halbing, Mario Ashkar, Ivette Spradlin
Financial support: The Heinz Endowment, The Pittsburgh Foundation, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Awesome Pittsburgh
About the work: This project began in 2015 with a generous grant from The Heinz Foundation and The Pittsburgh Foundation to support an artist residency at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, during which time I made these films. They are made in collaboration with the performers. The process typically followed a similar structure: work with a dancer I was inspired by and had been working with previously; choose a site in the city to activate; use this opportunity to explore more deeply the characters emerging that referenced our personal and political lives at the time of filming. Our main objective was to capture site-specific dance/performance in the most cinematic way possible - and not merely as documentation. Inspired by magical realism, theories of relativity, fables and fairy tales, Pittsburgh as the birthplace of the industrial world, The Journey of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis, Mary Oliver, black lives matter, Sandra Bland, and our own emotional language that connects the earth body and the female body into an endless conversation as one/other. The exception to this rule structure was the last work, The Long Song. You can read more about that here. The final output of Wild Clarity is as a collection of four unique, individual short films. These can be screened as single channel works, or as multi-channel projections. The work will continue to be screened and shown throughout 2017-2018, after its initial public debut at Pittsburgh Filmmakers on April 25, 2017. The presentation for the work requires, ideally, the performers to be present and perform alongside the film.