From San Francisco to London to Glasgow and back again, a unique online dance festival is in progress, a free selection of 28 dance shorts from SF Dance Film Festival, Screen.dance Festival, and Scottish Ballet.
The month-long festival, available from Marquee TV, includes content from artists in the U.S., Australia, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, and Italy, as well as a special series from Scottish Ballet.
“The very best short films tell compelling stories in an accessible way — they can make you laugh, cry, or leave you awestruck all within minutes,” says Kathleya Afanador, Marquee TV co-founder. “Like poems, they are concise, subtle, and they lend themselves to experimentation. Marquee TV is genuinely excited to share these beautiful works of art during our first ever Summer Shorts Festival.”
A performing arts streaming service, established in 2018, Marquee TV is providing video from the Royal Opera House, Bolshoi Ballet, Teatro Real, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Opera Zurich, and others, for a monthly charge of $8.99, but the Dance Shorts, as part of Marquee’s Summer Shorts Festival, is free.
Tune in to the entire online festival here.
Among the festival shorts:
• “Nela” - Royal Ballet principal dancer Marianela Nuñez dances to Nina Simone
• “Bunny” - the 2020 U.K. Audience Choice Award winner at the Screen.dance festival in Scotland
• “Making Men” - an artistic collaboration across Belgium and Zimbabwe, examining the cultural concept of masculinity, the myth and the paradox
• “Popsicle” - Katherine Helen Fisher’s work, shot at over 1000 frames per second on a Phantom camera, is described as a “riotous celebration of the female gaze”
• “O Abraço Logo Vem” - an animated dance short made with contributions from some 60 animation artists in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic
• “Ekman’s Concise Guide to Natural Movement” - a commissioned short by Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman and filmmaker T.M. Rives for SF Dance Film Festival’s Co-Laboratory program
