AUG 14 | Virtual
A kite and pita bread serve as metaphors in two arresting dance films from China and Luxembourg respectively. A solo figure explores architecture in Taipei while dancers offer a domestic scene in lockdown India. A vogueing shaman leads a chorus of women on a mountaintop in Lebanon and Indigenous dancers perform a sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz Island. Rounding out the virtual experience of the 40th Annual Battery Dance Festival, Massala Company beats out infectious rhythms in its own form of ceremony.
Click here at 7pm EDT: https://youtu.be/yhWHJavAHBI
The video will be available to watch for 10 days after the premiere and will expire on Aug 24th.
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Program
ABHILASH NINGAPPA
Fall Back | World Broadcast Premiere
India
Created for the Battery Dance Festival during the lockdown in India, our kitchen became a stage and our terrace became a studio. When confined to the home, the imagination turns inwards, reliving many kinds of thoughts and feelings from the past, and sometimes celebrating the very minor things that you do at home, like cleaning the kitchen or playing with a ceiling fan.
About the Company
Abhilash Ningappa, Founder and Artistic Director of Play Practice Artists Residency (INDIA), born and based in South India. Recognized as a performer, choreographer and teacher both nationally and internationally. He post graduated in SEAD (Salzburg) and Post Masters in APASS (Advanced performance and scenography studies) (Belgium). A yoga practitioner and a martial art teacher, trained in kalari payattu and contemporary dance.
CHENGLONG TANG
The Bait
China
Inspired by a Chinese folktale, Jiang Gong (The Bait) is a short film centering on a metaphor of the hook-less fishing rod. The fisherman and the fish are both voluntary characters that rely purely on instincts and emotions. An intentional collaboration between dancers from two distinct cultures, the experimental dance film portrays a subtle relationship that can be a symbol of cultural assimilation, appropriation, or nothing at all.
Presented in partnership with Cinedans. 
About the Company
3 Owls Studio is a newly established studio creating refreshing visual content and providing creative marketing solutions for artists. In the past, works produced and/or represented by 3 Owls have been showcased in more than 20 countries and prestiged film festivals.
DANCING EARTH CREATIONS
Groundworks Alcatraz | World Broadcast Premiere
United States
Groundworks Alcatraz is a multidisciplinary, mobile, site-responsive performance art installation that emerged out of long relationships with the land and peoples of the Bay Area; to honor and highlight the dreams, truths, and hopes of California’s Native cultural artists, who called in performing arts and media technology for activation of their aspirations. This film reflects the initiatory moment of shared contemporary ritual, just after the sunrise ceremony at Alcatraz, for Yelamu’s (San Francisco) first official Indigenous Peoples Day.
About the Company
Dancing Earth Creations dynamically activates our mission, to create contemporary dance and related arts through indigenous and intra-cultural relationships centered in ecological and cultural diversity for creativity, health, and wellness. Founded by Artistic Director Rulan Tangen in 2003 to serve a need rarely met in the USA, Dancing Earth Creations gives hope and opportunity to Native, mixed, global Indigenous and BIPOC talent who have been largely outside the dialogue of mainstream performance.
HOEDY SAAD
Goat & Al Jurd | World Broadcast Premiere
Lebanon
Dancemaker and voguer Hoedy Saad has created two short dance films that reflect different personal and complementary sides of his social and spiritual journey. Goat reveals his journey of self-discovery, searching for a deeper knowledge of beliefs, sources of comfort and strengths. Al Jurd (Barren Land) mirrors his struggle growing up as a feminine boy in Lebanon’s masculine society.
About the Company
Hoedy Saad is a 26-year-old Lebanese Voguing dancer, choreographer and performer. He was the first to introduce Voguing as a culture and dance to both the Lebanese dance and club scene. Being a self-taught dancer, Hoedy started voguing in 2013 and introduced the House ballroom scene to Beirut in 2017. He performed on some of the biggest stages in Beirut and Amsterdam and took part in various music videos as a dancer and choreographer. Aside from the dance world, Hoedy is a full-time Veterinarian.
JILL CROVISIER
FREE PITA & NILYDNA | World Broadcast Premiere
Luxembourg
Free Pita (World Broadcast Premiere), finds its inspiration in the multiple faces of Israel. Aside from the territorial matter and the high political tensions around the disputed Holy Land is a nation of people who try to live a decent life, together. Nilydna (the name of the featured dancer, Andy Lin, in reverse) explores gender identification and the beauty and strength of a young man who tries to find his place in a world of 7 billion humans.
About the Company
Jill Crovisier graduated in ballet and contemporary dance at the Conservatory of Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) before continuing her studies in China, France, the United States, Indonesia and Israel. She has been working since 2007 as a professional dancer and since 2015 as a dancer, choreographer and videographer. Award winning and world-renowned since 2017, Jill Crovisier has participated in numerous prestigious choreographic competitions and festivals. Since 2020,the company JC movement production is funded with the Ministry of Culture Luxembourg.
MASSALA COMPANY
Näss (People), Excerpt | World Broadcast Premiere
France
First there is rhythm, the sounds of immemorial time, unceasing and obsessive. From this rhythm is born the communion of seven dancers, a fusion of energies and bodies, the power of the community with its inherent violence and weaknesses. On the border between the sacred and the profane, between frenetic modernity and ancestral rituals, Näss challenges contradictory physical states and affirms the fusion between the popular and urban aspects of hip-hop. It questions its proper roots tracing their evolution until today.
About the Company
A choreographer, dancer and teacher, Fouad Boussouf trained as a hip-hop dancer – his favourite style – but takes inspiration from different dance forms, including contemporary dance. His multidisciplinary career and experience as a performer make for a resolutely modern approach to choreography and dancing, where hip-hop meets and merges with contemporary expression, traditional North-African dances and new circus. His work fuses these influences and addresses pressing contemporary topics through the performances of his dancers.