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Modern Daydreams 1: Deere John A collaboration with BodyVox dance company. Director, Writer, Editor : Mitchell Rose Choreographers: Ashley Roland, Jamey Hampton Producers:
Ashley Roland, Jamey Hampton, Mitchell Rose Performers:
Jamey Hampton, Excavator
690E-LC Cello: Benjamin Smith
Other
Festivals: Permanent
Collection of the Museum of Television and Radio Press Quotes Deere
John, a film by Mitchell Rose, is in effect a funny and surprisingly touching
fantasy duet for Mr. Hampton and a big and beauteous John Deere excavator,
on whose giant yellow claw Mr. Hampton eventually dozes off like a tired
child, waking to find himself back in reality on a rainy city street. Modern
Daydreams is a triumph in short filmmaking—nothing short of brilliant.
It is quite a feat to make a work of high artistic sensibility that is
still utterly entertaining and uplifting to the human spirit. Kudos to
Rose on this achievement and here’s hoping we soon see more glimpses
into his whimsical mind. …It's
the first dance performance that has ever made me laugh out loud. The
pas de deux for man and machine, set to the music for "The Dying
Swan," unfolds with hilarious delicacy. Jamey
Hampton and Ashley Roland (performers, choreographers, co-producers) are
artistic directors of the contemporary dance company BodyVox.
They were original members of Momix, and in 1986 co-founded ISO Dance,
for which they choreographed and danced worldwide. They have also choreographed
and performed with, among others, Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest,
and have choreographed and performed in award winning music videos of
Sting, Pat Metheny, Michael Jackson and David Bowie. They are recipients
of an Emmy award for choreography and in 1998 co-choreographed and performed
in the 1998 Academy Awards Director's Statement In early 2000, Mitchell Rose received a fellowship from NIPAD, the National Initiative to Preserve America's Dance, to explore ways of filming dance, attempting to capture dance's aliveness in a two-dimensional medium. It was a joy for him to be able to revisit dance and synthesize these two loves. The fourth episode of Modern Daydreams, Deere John, was created during that fellowship after he had been invited by Portland-based dance company BodyVox to collaborate on a film. Based on the success of Deere John, he received additional funding from NIPAD to expand on the work and create the Modern Daydreams series of four episodes—the idea being to play the pieces as a web series and bring artful yet entertaining dance to a vast new audience via the Internet. Hitchcock
said that silent films were “the purest form of cinema” and
that filmmakers “should resort to dialogue only when it’s
impossible to do otherwise.” Dance then is, I think, a natural language
for cinema. |