"Check Your Body At The Door" and download this doc!

Check Your Body At The Door (2012)

now available for digital download

Download Check Your Body at the Door on iTunes 

Available in six languages and in over 20 countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Italy and Australia

Check Your Body at the Door documents some remarkable underground House dancers and dancing in NYC’s golden decade, the 1990s. Featuring interviews and rare dance footage of the enduring legends of House dance, Check Your Body at the Door follows a group of master freestylists to the clubs, at their jobs and in their everyday lives. Filmed at the clubs, and in a studio against a white background or in silhouette and light pools, this one-hour documentary reveals the virtuosity of this eclectic urban dance style. In 2013, House is a music/dance craze practiced worldwide. Check Your Body at the Door is a significant historical record that contextualizes a wide variety of House dance forms and answers: What did house dancing look like? Who were the dancers? Why did they dance?

According to Executive Producer Sally R. Sommer the idea for Check Your Body at the Door began in 1982 at David Mancuso’s “Loft” where she first went with dancer Archie Burnett. As a dance journalist and social dance historian Sommer saw “amazing artists dancing in the dark.” At the time, club footage only glamorized torsos bouncing to loud music under multicolored lights. “I saw more. I wanted a film that featured dancers and illuminated the entire body in motion.”

Full Territory List: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ireland, Malta, Bulgaria, Latvia, Norway, Cyprus, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Hungary, Portugal, Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Estonia

Kyle Abraham in a luminous film by Gabri Christa

Dance artist and filmmaker Gabri Christa wrote me this note about 2013 MacArthur Award winner, Kyle Abraham:

When I saw Kyle dance (in 2007), I was immediately smitten--and also because he looks like my family. Yes, I wanted to make a film with my dad, and Kyle looks so much like my dad when he was younger, it was a no-brainer. So we lived together and worked together in my home town, and he is also a wonderful person who deserves all the love he is getting. So here they are: my dad Marcel Stomp and my lil bro Kyle.

From TenduTV's Essential Dance Film collection on YouTube: 

An older man looks at his younger self (Kyle Abraham) explore an old quarantine building for enslaved Africans. Quarantine is the first film in Gabri Christa's Another Building series, which features short narrative dance films that take place in and around historic buildings and sites connected to the Dutch History.

The quarantine building was in Curaçao and housed slaves who were too sick to be taken to the Americas. 

For more information on the Another Building series, click here.

They're making it right HERE.

New York Performing Artists Share Inspiration on ‘Made Here’
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, March 13, 2013

Dancing in "The Rain"

Coming soon to iTunes from TenduTV

A series of tableaux of everyday settings with people in various stages of their lives. Relations form and finish, memories of meetings mingle with the yearning for meetings that have not happened yet. The dance slowly takes over, forming a pattern that none of the characters can see - they are all connected. The rain affects them all.

For more essential dance films, subscribe to TenduTV on YouTube.

You're essential to Essential Dance Film [call for submissions]

Essential Dance Film - Spring/Summer 2013

The art of capturing dance on film is as old as the art of film itself - the first dance films were created by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895. Essential Dance Film is proud to showcase the state of dance film today by presenting a curated election of features and shorts from around the world. The Essential Dance Film collection includes works by festival winners, Hollywood veterans and emerging filmmakers.    

Submissions for Essential Dance Film - Spring/Summer 2013 will be considered on an ongoing basis until January 15, 2013.

TenduTV (tendu.tv) is now accepting submissions for Essential Dance Film, a curated selection of features and shorts by choreographers and filmmakers from around the world. Building upon the original Essential Dance Film collection, a series of 9 dance shorts released by TenduTV in 2010, the expanded and newly-rebranded channel now releases new films each week via TenduTV’s digital platform partners. Essential Dance Film is available on the popular US platform, Hulu, and is mirrored on a branded YouTube show page that is available to audiences worldwide.

Essential Dance Film is on YouTube at www.youtube.com/show/essentialdancefilm and on Hulu at www.hulu.com/essential-dance-film

If you would like your film to be considered for Essential Dance Film, email content@tendu.tv with the following information:

• Title of film

• Year and place of premiere

• Screening history

• Type of source video (eg. Beta, Digibeta, Apple Pro Res)

• Link to a clip (if available)

• Confirmation of music rights   

Watch this: There is a Place

From Essential Dance Film by TenduTv

Winner of the 2011 San Francisco Dance Film Festival, There is a Place combines the exquisite movement of renowned Tibetan dancer-choreographer, Sang Jijia, with the stunning landscapes of the Scottish highlands.

Dance is essential. So is dance film.

Be sure to visit Essential Dance Film every Tuesday for the weekly release of new creative short features and documentaries from around the world, such as director Kate Duhamel's Kaleidoscope, coming soon.

Kaleidoscope features tap-dancer Jason Samuels Smith dancing to Paolo Nutini’s “New Shoes.” The dance film displays tap at its coolest, pairing the highly stylized and physical dance form with the suavity of Smith’s dancing.

Up now: Jody Oberfelder's popular Come Sit Stay

Essential Dance Film is available at Hulu and TenduTV’s YouTube channel.

MADE HERE? Yes, and now available at Hulu!

Vernon Reid and Gabri Christa (photo by Chiara Clemente)

HERE's innovative video documentary series MADE HERE--directed by Chiara Clemente and featuring theme-based interviews with performing artists who make New York New York--has come to Hulu!

Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp (photo by Chiara Clemente)

See it here--yeah, I know, an unavoidable pun--presented in partnership with TenduTV.

Now from TenduTV: "The Co(te)lette Film"

The Co(te)lette Film (58:16)
Savage Film, Red Mullet, WArd/waRD (2010)

Director: Mike Figgis

Choreography: Ann Van den Broek

Winner, Best of Festival Award, Dance Camera West Festival 2011 (USA); Best Dance Film, Cyprus International Film Festival 2011 (Cyprus); Le Prix du Film sur l’Art, 11th Festival du Film sur l’Art (Brussels)

Watching Mike Figgis' film of Ann Van den Broek's provocative, award-winning dance production, Co(te)lette (2007), reminded me of how a colleague had raised an objection after a showing of Nicholas Leichter's work-in-progress, Twenty Twenty. This critic thought that aspects of that dance too often verged on the pornographic. I walked away thinking, Hmmm... Well, even if that were so, what exactly would be the problem with a choreographer dipping into this other site of the body's vulnerability and power? Twenty Twenty, as a lot of folks will readily tell you, is growing into an outlandish duet (with Leichter's amazing young dance partner, Bryan Strimpel), but if Twenty Twenty makes you squeamish, you're simply not ready for Co(te)lette.

Van den Broek has her three female dances start out down on all fours in short, lightweight skirts and sparkly ballroom shoes. Backsides to the camera. Butts twitching in precise, mechanical rhythm. A metronomic trio panting industrial breath. Butts sloshing like a washing machine's agitation. Torsos swerving with the big swoosh of a cleaning rag or scrub brush in a cleaning woman's sturdy and determined hand. Gazed at as if from directly behind, from overhead, from one side or another and... But wait: The camera pulls away to reveal that there are others coolly watching the women's all-in, increasingly ferocious action from the sidelines as if visiting a cage in a zoo.

Concert dance shies away from much of what follows in Co(te)lette but, by doing so, sidesteps its potential to illuminate this treacherous, ambiguous, suspended place between the real and the artificial, the danger of being embodied and sexual, particularly embodied and sexual as female in a world where straight men hold the lion's share of power. This idea might be usefully conveyed by words alone. But dance must also be there, and this dance is there.

Click here for The Co(te)lette Film from TenduTV.

Dance folks are talking...or should be

APAP Preview: Ten Things the Dance Field Should Be Talking About in 2012
by Marc Kirschner, TenduTV, January 5, 2012

TenduTV offers new ways to savor dance

Live dance is a powerful force, but when you're away from the theater, fantastic dance and its talented creators can also be as close as your fingertips. Visit TenduTV, the new source for high-quality dance media featuring concert performances, documentaries and interviews available for streaming or download. Watch the best in dance on your tv, tablet or mobile device--anywhere that you are. Get started with TenduTV.

Coming up at The Joyce Theater: 

MacArthur Award winner Martha Clarke and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry present Angel Reapers, November 29-December 11. Lust among the the 18th Century Shakers! 

See this now, from TenduTV:  Martha Clarke: Light and Dark (60 min.)

Directed by Joyce Chopra, Light and Dark follows dancer/choreographer Martha Clarke’s creative process for a year, as she finds her own voice as a choreographer following her departure from Pilobolus. Winner of the 1980 Dance on Camera Festival.

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Kirschner on dance's future: Lead, follow or get out of the way

10 Things the Dance Field Should Be Talking About in 2011
Marc Kirschner, TenduTV, January 6, 2010

The essential Marc Kirschner

TenduTV mainstreams and monetizes dance film

by Zachary Whittenburg, TimeOut Chicago, November 18-24, 2010

Dancing up Next for iPods
by Pia Catton, The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2010

Hulu dancing...on camera

TenduTV announces the launch of the digital Dance on Camera Festival on Hulu, at www.hulu.com/network/tendutv--an extension of the Dance Films Association's Dance on Camera Festival (DOCF), which it has produced annually for the last 38 years, the last 14 of which have been co-presented with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. 

TenduTV will be adding new films on a regular basis, providing viewers with a diverse range of dance on screen. While the initial films primarily represent contemporary works from prior editions of the festival, the Dance Films Association and TenduTV will also curate focused collections of dance films. Planned themes include "Past Masters," "Africa" and "Animation." 

Currently available films

Arcus, a jury prize nominee, DOCF 2004

directed by Alla Kovgan and Jeff Silva

Arising, from DOCF 2009

directed and choreographed by Ben Dolphin

Folies D'Espagne, a jury prize nominee, DOCF 2008

directed by Philip Busier

choreographed by Austin McCormick

Madrugada, from DOCF 2005

directed by William Morrison

choreographed by Deborah Greenfield

Vanishing Point, DOCF 2009

directed by Patrick Lovejoy

Wiped, Jury Winner, DOCF 2002

directed and choreographed by Hans Beenhakker 

About TenduTV

Founded in 2008, TenduTV seeks to deliver dance to audiences through the highest quality digital distribution network available to the art form today. Through TenduTV's platform partners, dance artists and organizations will be able to transport their vision beyond the physical theater and engage audiences through computers and 200 million digital devices including internet-enabled televisions, portable video players and mobile devices. By empowering artists to connect with audiences on a global scale, TenduTV believes that the dance field can be as strong financially as it is creatively.

About Dance Films Association, Inc.

Dance Films Association, Inc. (DFA) is dedicated to furthering the art of dance film. Connecting artists and organizations, fostering new works for new audiences, and sharing essential resources, DFA seeks to be a catalyst for innovation in and preservation of dance on camera. DFA was founded by Susan Braun in 1956, and included Ted Shawn, the founder of Jacob's Pillow, as its charter member, as well as modern dance pioneer Jose Limon and ballerina Alicia Markova as members of its first Board of Directors. A tireless advocate, Ms. Braun devoted her life to finding, showcasing, preserving dance films and videos until her death in 1995. Today, DFA seeks to carry on her spirit of creativity and collaboration in a time of extraordinary transformation. 

For more information, visit Dance Films Association and TenduTV.

Video for the Arts meetup

Announcing a new Meetup for Arts, Culture and Technology!

Video for the Arts

September 17 (7 PM)

Admission: $5

at 3 Legged Dog, 80 Greenwich Street, Manhattan (212-645-0374)

Video is one of the most powerful communication tools we have at the moment--both online and off. Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world right now? That's crazy.

In this meetup session we'll take a look at how cultural organizations can utilize video to connect with audiences, as well as some of the tools and best practices to help them do so.

The speakers are as follows:

Art21 -- Jonathan Munar is the Web Manager at Art21—a non-profit arts organization and producer of a Peabody Award-winning PBS series on contemporary art—where he manages the Art21 Web sites, edits a column on the Art21 blog, and oversees the organization's social media initiatives. Before joining Art21 in 2008, Jonathan was the Website Technology Manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Tendu.TV -- Marc Kirschner is the founder and General Manager of TenduTV, a broadband network delivering dance and dance-related programming to home users on their computers, mobile devices and reaches over 30 million televisions in the US. Kirschner created the concept of digital licensing for choreography and executed the first such licensing deals in the dance industry. Kirschner was recently invited to sit on the advisory board of Dance/NYC, where he will serve as chair of the technology committee.

Arin Crumley -- Putting real life into film, podcasting to extend the narrative, captivating social network audiences, Google mapping the audience demand for a theatrical release and digitally distributing to millions of internet viewers around the world. The pioneering efforts of Arin Crumley haven’t gone unnoticed as Indiewire, MovieMaker, The Wall Street Journal, The Spirit Awards, The Sundance Channel, IFC TV, & many others have jumped into the echo chamber further demonstrating all that new media has to offer.

Blip.tv -- Eric Mortensen joined blip.tv in 2006 as the Director of Content Development, where he oversees discovery of and interaction with new media content creators. As a founder of the pioneering social bookmarking site, linkfilter.net, a prolific blogger and the co-founder of Digital Dissonance — a digital music collaboration created in 1994 and pre-dating the commercial Internet — Mortensen has spent more than fourteen years as a social media innovator and expert.

And possibly one more to be added...

Presentations will begin promptly at 7:15, so please arrive on time. There will be a complimentary wine cocktail hour after the presentations, so be sure to stick around and socialize!

Learn more here.

Dance films town hall meeting tomorrow

Participate in Dance Films Association's Survey & Town Hall Meeting

The Madoff impact?

Madoff Fraud to Hit Dance Companies?
TenduTv, December 13, 2008