Samantha Foster
Contributing Writer
This past Tuesday, six short films selected by the New York Dance Films Association and VCU Dance’s ‘Restaging ‘Shelter’’ premiered at the showing of ‘Dance on Camera’ film screening at the Grace Street Theater. The short films were selected for their portrayal of diverse dance styles across the world.
The first piece, “After the Water the Clouds,” follows a woman as all the people she knows become mythical and surreal. “Bow,” done entirely in shadows, attempted to capture the movement of folding origami through dance.
The third short, “Hoop,” captured a woman dancing with a hula-hoop, but the supplmental ear-splitting music was disruptive and harsh.
“From Roosevelt to Brooklyn,” a refreshing escape from its high-brow predecessors, only fell short in its brevity. Set to a fitting rock soundtrack, the piece depicted free runner Jesse La Flair running up the sides of buildings, only to backflip off of them.
The audience apprecitaed the initial Irish violins and tap dancer in the dark pub of “Unsung.” But the film departed from its initial cheer, and a woman singing solmenly to another woman dancing around the pub ended the piece.
“There is a Place” showed an impressive modern dance set to spoken words and a repetitive beat. The audience was entranced by the dancer’s movement and the sounds of his hands and elbows hitting the large wooden table with which he danced.
“Slow Dance” followed a woman as she tried to move across a bar to meet a man in whom she is interested. Her movements, by far the most comical of the night, included hitting several men in the head with beer bottles, flipping the bartender over her back and causing two other men to crash into each other. The audience was in tears laughing even as the credits rolled.
The main event of the evening, directed by Bruce Berryhill and VCU Dance professor Martha Curtis was the premier of VCU Dance’s first documentary, “Restaging ‘Shelter.’” The film follows the Urban Bush Women dance group and their artistic director, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, as she taught last year’s VCU Dance students the piece “Shelter.”
“Shelter” portrayed the concept of homelessness and being displaced in your world. The piece was characterized by a heavy use of drums and spoken word. The phrase “’cause I ain’t fled nothing, my country fled me” is repeated throughout the piece and is the basis for the work’s message.
In this piece, Zollar says her art is serving a purpose by educating people on the feelings of being displaced, not just that people are displaced and homeless.
For “Restaging ‘Shelter,'” current Urban Bush Women and former VCU Dance students, Bennalldra Williams and Samantha Speis, returned to teach the current dance majors the basics of getting in touch with their emotions and building the endurance necessary to dance with Zollar.
The goal of the documentary was to not only relay the message of “Shelter,” but to showcase Zollar’s artistic process.
In the end, the “Shelter” did exactly what it intended to do: show the audience how emotionally involved the dancers were in the piece. The audience treated the documentary as if it was a home movie. They cheered and laughed when the dancers they knew were interviewed and applauded after clips from “Shelter” were shown.
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