EXCHANGE Choreography Festival
Dear Friends and Artists,
We hope this letter finds you safe and healthy. These are uncertain times but we know that the resilient human spirit is also proving to answer the call of compassion and innovation. Our mission at Exchange Choreography is to foster dialogue to support, explore and inform the artists’ process in dancemaking.
We, at The Bell House, value the human soul above our own agenda, and having sought wisdom, it is our decision to move the 2020 Exchange Choreography Festival online due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. We are confident that our mission to support the work and process of dancemakers will not only be fulfilled but will unify us in solidarity. What is in reality a dark time in our world has the potential to open opportunities to make work side by side with those we suddenly find ourselves “with” via the web, in new working environments and with new challenges to shape our ideas.
Our creative team is working diligently to shift the festival model to an online format for this year with plans toward the hope of seeing one another face-to-face again in 2021.
Artists have always been the heralds of society to resolve to make art in times of crisis and while many of us had our dancemaking processes interrupted, we hope that moving Exchange online will encourage all of us to continue the work and will give us new energy to process those interrupted works until they become something new; new creative fuel and new inspiration.
As revered visual artist, Makoto Fujimura, stated, “More than ever, we are faced with the unique opportunity to be a body of people who brings people together, to find common threads of community. Someday, when we emerge from this strange period of our lives, I hope we will do so with a renewed appreciation for generative and generous relationships.”
We wholeheartedly agree and hope you will join us online this year.
CREATION ~
THRESHOLD REVISITED
The Bell House recently commenced a choreography project for a stage work by Susan Douglas Roberts, titled THRESHOLD. A group work for 6 local dancers will work throughout the year face-to-face and remotely for a Tulsa premiere at EXCHANGE 2020, July 24-25.
The Bell House recently commenced a choreography project for a stage work by Susan Douglas Roberts, titled THRESHOLD. A group work for 6 local dancers will work throughout the year face-to-face and remotely for a Tulsa premiere at EXCHANGE 2020, July 24-25.
*instagram by Rachel Johnson
Oklahoma Dance Film Fest
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Oklahoma Dance Film Festival
February 24, 2019 Local festival attracts international films. Curated by Jessica Vokoun For 10+ years, the Oklahoma Dance Film Festival (OkDFF) has presented cutting-edge, dance-based art films in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The OkDFF mission is to present and foster the art of Screendance in its many varied forms: documentaries, short-films, animation, choreography for the camera and experimental work that emphasizes movement. Every year, the festival receives hundreds of submissions from artists around the globe. Selected films will be presented in 3 unique programs on Sunday, February 24that the Aaronson Auditorium of the Tulsa County Central Library. All screenings are free. Dance films create a bridge between visual and performance arts; they redefine the idea of “moving-pictures” and construct a new stage for dance. Dance films are not just movies about dance. They merge dance with digital technology. It is a visual art form with kinesthetic energy - an exciting fit for a gallery setting. |
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DANCE FOR CAMERA
Oklahoma Dance Film Festival
February 24, 2019 Local festival attracts international films. For 10+ years, the Oklahoma Dance Film Festival (OkDFF) has presented cutting-edge, dance-based art films in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The OkDFF mission is to present and foster the art of Screendance in its many varied forms: documentaries, short-films, animation, choreography for the camera and experimental work that emphasizes movement. Every year, the festival receives hundreds of submissions from artists around the globe. Selected films will be presented in 3 unique programs. Sunday, February 24th Aaronson Auditorium of the Tulsa County Central Library Screenings: 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., & 3:30 p.m. All screenings are free. The OkDFF is a unique film festival based in Tulsa, OK, that features choreography for the camera, dance documentaries, and experimental short-films that emphasize movement. Since 2007, the OkDFF has screened a wide variety of historic and acclaimed dance films by artists from around the world. The purpose of the festival is to celebrate dance in the medium of film and video – favoring those works which demonstrate both artistic and technical excellence. We seek fresh, innovative films and our programming reflects a global breadth of imagination. We have partnered with arts organizations, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, to expand our touring program - developing opportunities to share work, to network, to educate and cultivate new audiences. Please celebrate the diversity and innovation of dance on film. Dance films are not just movies about dance. They merge dance with digital technology. It is a visual art form with kinesthetic energy - an exciting fit for a gallery setting. https://filmfreeway.com/OkDFF |
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Dance films create a bridge between visual and performance arts;
they redefine the idea of “moving-pictures”
and construct a new stage for dance.
Dance in the Mix | FIELD NOTES ~
Generous words by Alicia Chesser on the making of Game of Risk by Rachel Bruce Johnson. Work originally commissioned by Perpetual Motion Modern Dance Oklahoma and recently performed at Creations in Studio K at the Tulsa Ballet and the {254}-dance-fest in Waco, TX.
"I’ve written here before about the process of making work with Rachel, and having her set work on us has proven to be just as rich (because, well, the work is!). “Game of Risk” (originally created this past spring for Perpetual Motion in Oklahoma City) is an honest, unflinching look at partnership — not what it can be or what it shouldn’t be, but what it often is: a bit of a mess of good intentions gone awry, a clash of wills, an ever-shifting dance among courage, trust, and fear. Rachel’s work is thrilling to learn because it combines a lot of specificity and a lot of space, threading together small looks and gestures with big tough anchoring phrases. As a choreographer and coach she has what I think of as a very sensitive volume-control knob, so that a movement of the eyes can actually be “louder” than the pounding, dynamic floor work that comes shortly after it. Being in her work, watching her create and re-create in the moment, is always an awesome gift. "
~Alicia Chesser
Full Blog Post Here
"I’ve written here before about the process of making work with Rachel, and having her set work on us has proven to be just as rich (because, well, the work is!). “Game of Risk” (originally created this past spring for Perpetual Motion in Oklahoma City) is an honest, unflinching look at partnership — not what it can be or what it shouldn’t be, but what it often is: a bit of a mess of good intentions gone awry, a clash of wills, an ever-shifting dance among courage, trust, and fear. Rachel’s work is thrilling to learn because it combines a lot of specificity and a lot of space, threading together small looks and gestures with big tough anchoring phrases. As a choreographer and coach she has what I think of as a very sensitive volume-control knob, so that a movement of the eyes can actually be “louder” than the pounding, dynamic floor work that comes shortly after it. Being in her work, watching her create and re-create in the moment, is always an awesome gift. "
~Alicia Chesser
Full Blog Post Here
*instagram by Alicia Chesser