Thursday, March 4, 2010 – 6:00pmImages: 

The dance film series Motion Pictures, which in previous years has been presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects as a stand-alone series, will now be offered in conjunction with PDP Presents. Motion Pictures will feature a special screening of Beyond the Mainstream, the rarely seen PBS Great Performances: Dance in America series featuring postmodern, avant-garde dancers from 1980.

Now in its 9th year, Motion Picturesexplores how film and video serve as a natural collaborative medium for dance, highlighting the power of image and motion in both. The festival features experimental and innovative shorts, documentaries, “moc”umentaries, and animations.

Beyond the Mainstream
1980/USA/58.48 min.
Videorecording; WNET/Thirteen; directed by Merrill Brockway;
produced by Merrill Brockway and Carl Charlson

Beyond the Mainstream, a legendary episode of PBS’s Great Performances: Dance in America series, features performances by members of the postmodern Judson era including Steve Paxton (founder/creator of Contact Improvisation), Lisa Nelson, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, and David Gordon, along with two artists caught up in the spiritual quest of the times, Laura Dean and Kei Takei. The documentary offers a rare view of Paxton, Nelson, and early contactors in action and includes Rainer’s iconic “Trio A” and Brown’s seminal company which in 1980 featured Lisa Kraus and Eva Karczag (who will appear together in the PDP Presents 2010 presentation of Red Thread).

Motion Pictures is presented in partnership with “Dance with Camera,” an exhibition now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (www.icaphila.org), Film @ International House, and the Dance Film Association’s Touring Partners Program.

Artists

Entanglement Theory