Opening Program Installation Program 1   Program 2-3  Program 4-5 Program 6 Program 7 Program 8 Program 9   Program 10  Program 11 Program 12 Program 13 Program 14 Closing Ceremony

Program II-III: Dance Film Artist in Focus: David Hinton (in person)

David Hinton is one of the most celebrated directors working in dance film today and has worked with some of the best known names in contemporary dance including DV8 Physical Theatre, Siobhan Davies, Wendy Houston and Russell Maliphant.

I think making dance films are probably the most interesting films you could possibly make. On a very fundamental level, making a film and making a dance are a very similar kind of activity; they're both about giving structure to action. If you think of film as just a formal language, and you forget about the acting and the talking you can look at any film as a dance film. All films take images of action and try to put these images together in a rhythmic and expressive way. In this sense film and dance work along the same lines. – David Hinton

Early in his career, David Hinton made numerous documentaries about art and artists of all kinds including painter Francis Bacon, filmmaker Michael Powell, choreographer Karole Armitage among many others. In 1988, he won BAFTA award for his documentary “Bernardo Bertolucci and the Last Emperor”. In 1988, he also completed “Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment”, a largely dramatized account of Dostoevsky’s work, for the UK television (Channel 4). He then went to America to direct “The Making of a legend: Gone With the Wind” (1989) which was shown on BBC and won the Archival Achievement Award of the British Film Institute.

Since 1989, David Hinton has worked entirely independently, making both documentaries, dance and performance films. Among David’s collaborations with choreographers are adaptations of two celebrated stage works by DV8 Physical Theatre – “Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” (1990) and “Strange Fish” (1994). He has also made a film adaptation of Russell Maliphant’s “Critical Mass” (1999) for Channel 4 and has filmed two stage works by Ulysses Dove “Vespers” and “Heaven” (1995) for the “Great Performance” series at Channel 13 in New York.

Among David’s experimental dance shorts are “Touched” (1995) (created in collaboration with choreographer Wendy Houstoun); “Birds” (2000) and “Snow” (2003) (created entirely from library footage, the latter in collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Lee). His dance films have won many awards, including an a Prix Italia and a Grand Prix International Video Danse for “Strange Fish” (1994). He has twice won the IMZ Dance Screen Award – for “Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” (1990) and for “Birds” (2000).
David Hinton is also a founder of Dance Film Academy in London.

Program II: An evening with David Hinton (in person)
venue: DOM KINO

Birds (10min, 2000)
Director: David Hinton

Imagine a dance film without dancers, yet filled with fascinating movement. Through film editing, music and choreographer's perception, the unrehearsed, natural movement of birds becomes an exhilarating dance experience.

Touched (14min, 1994)
Director: David Hinton
Choreographer: Wendy Houston

A romance for hands and faces - and the odd foot, this video is the choreography of close-ups set in a bar in north London. The characters talk, smoke, drink, dance, fight, laugh, and weep.
Wendy Houston is a dancer/actor who has been performing in England for over twenty years. She has worked with many contemporary dance companies including DV8. Her solos reveal a highly individual style in which the dancer becomes verbally self-reflective.

Strange Fish (50min, 1992)
Director: David Hinton
Adapted for the screen by Lloyd Newson and David Hinton
Performers: Kate Champion, Nigel Charnock, Jordi Cortes Molina, Wendy Houstoun, Diana Payne-Myers, Melanie Pappenheim (vocals), Lauren Potter, Dale Tanner

photo by Hugo Glendinning

As in all DV8's work, the performers in Strange Fish take astounding and humbling physical risks, and are audacious in fashioning metaphors of extreme emotion. The work concerns the nature of our quest for someone to love and something, or someone, to believe in. The tyranny of couples and groups, the pain of not belonging and the terror of being alone are all laid bare in a series of powerful images which are both pitiless and profoundly compassionate. Strange Fish is harrowing and frightening, but also contains some acutely funny moment.

Awards
• Prix Italia Special Prize - Music & Arts, 1994
• Best Choreography Festival International Danse Visions 1994
• Best Stage Performance Reworked for the Camera IMZ Dance Screen 1993
• Pierre Cardin Award Grand Prix International Video-Danse 1993

DV8 Physical Theatre was formed in 1986 by an independent collective of dancers who had become frustrated and disillusioned with the preoccupation and direction of most dance. The company has produced 15 highly acclaimed dance pieces, which have toured internationally, and 5 award-winning films for television. The company is led by Lloyd Newson. Newson's interest in dance arose while completing his degree in psychology, an interest that led to a scholarship to London Contemporary Dance School. From 1981 to 1985 he was a dancer and choreographer with Extemporary Dance Theatre, during which time he worked with a wide range of choreographers, including Karole Armitage, Michael Clark, David Gordon, Daniel Larrieu and Dan Wagoner. Lloyd Newson's work since 1986 as the Director of DV8 Physical Theatre has had a dynamic impact on contemporary dance by challenging the traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade most modern and classical dance. An important aspect of this challenge is his personal rejection of abstraction in dance with his concentration on connecting meaning to movement and in addressing current social issues.

His stage and film work with DV8 has consistently received major British and international awards. All works created since 1987 have been to commissioned scores.

Program III: An evening with David Hinton (in person)
venue: BRITISH COUNCIL

Snow (6 min, 2003)
Director: David Hinton in collaboration with Rosemary Lee

Archival footage of winter antics from the 1890s to the 1960s is cut and re-combined to create a rhythmic choreography of gesture and action, on the slippery sidewalks and slopes of a bygone era.

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (50min, 1990)
Director: David Hinton
Co-directed and choreographed by: Lloyd Newson
Performers: Lloyd Newson, Nigel Charnock, Russell Maliphant, Douglas Wright

photo by Eleni Leoussi

“Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” explores the grisley world of the notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Founded upon the conviction that societal homophobia is bound to result in tragic consequences, it gets to grips with the disturbing forces that drove Nilson to kill for company. In the anguished twilight between the meatmarket of gay clubland and brokenhearted bedsitterland, the fine line between sex and death is all but erased. Harrowing, and bleak, the fierce physical action that has become DV8's trademark is nevertheless shaped into a forceful plea for humanity in a dehumanising world.

Awards
• Festival International du Film sur l'Art 1992
• Best Stage Performance Reworked for the Camera IMZ Dance Screen 1990

Since its premier in Montreal October 2003, Amelia has been screened at festivals around the world including the US, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Norway and Spain.

 

Opening Program Installation Program 1   Program 2-3  Program 4-5 Program 6 Program 7 Program 8 Program 9   Program 10  Program 11 Program 12 Program 13 Program 14 Closing Ceremony

© Kinodance–Russia, 2006
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