Projects

Projects

Cinemovement Digitalk

June - July 2020

Cinemovement organises a series of talks that aim to provide different perspectives and approaches to dance filmmaking, exploring the possibility of its language, process, theories, financing and distribution. Participation is open to up to 20 participants per session via Zoom.

I. Digital Transformed Body by Elysa Wendi (22 June 2020, 2:30pm – 5:30pm)
Transitioning from dance to film, from body and movement within the frame to the re-organisation of film and dance language, dance films and videos are currently developing beyond the collaborative process between two different mediums. Each art form is challenged and transformed to offer new ways of communicating and experiencing for performers and audiences. This talk offers an insight into the journey of Wendi’s transition from live to filmic creations.

II. Three Dance Films by Liao Jiekai (23 June 2020, 2:30pm – 5:30pm)
This talk draws from Liao’s practical dance-filmmaking experience in the past five years to examine and discuss the new aesthetic possibilities that arises when a filmmaker encounters a dance artist, when cinema encounters dance. Through a sharing of excerpts and reflections from the production of The Mist (2016), Till Then Awakening in a Dream (2019) and Faraway My Shadow Wandered (2021), three dance films that Liao has made under Cinemovement Laboratory and Residency in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Japan respectively, the talk will attempt to bring forth new ideas and starting points for both dancers and filmmakers who are keen to collaborate or utilise elements of dance or film in their own artistic practice. The talk will also discuss how the unique nature and character of specific sites can inspire spontaneity from the creators.

III. Expanded Cine-Dance by Tang Fu Kuen (24 June 2020, 2:30pm – 5:30pm)
The organicism of the moving body is produced in relation to the multiple scapes and frames in which it is located, conceived, and red. Through his impressive body of ‘dance films’, we can observe how Norman McLaren employs diverse choreographic approaches to corporeal vitalism, spatiality, sense-making, formal abstraction, and environmental dynamism to nature and non-human spheres.

IV. Film Market and Distribution Mechanics by Jeremy Chua (25 June 2020, 2:30pm – 5:30pm)
There are now new opportunities for performing arts companies and independent artists to create new and bold audiovisual work to increase the portability and outreach of their work. As realities of distribution, online or offline, are evolving, familiarity and understanding of the audiovisual market is a useful tool for any producer to ensure that their audiovisual work has the best chance at an international life. This talk is a practical session on navigating the film market ecosystem, understanding common industry practices to prepare for a market, creating business development and sales strategies in the project development phase, and taking advantage of the international film markets for financing and distribution.

To register for the Digitalks, please find a googleform on our news page, or copy this link onto your search engine:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-rfIQ2bfRWEdAPhMtRw8vH151HN7rYOtZ5UOH7QlFzozlGw/viewform

For more information, please email us at cinemovement.sg@gmail.com

Cinemovement Happy Hours

June - July 2020

Cinemovement organises a workshop for a group of up to 10 participants focused on the development and proposal making of a dance film, experimental video, documentary, installation or hybrid project that explores both cinema and dance art forms. Through group discussion and one-on-one exchanges with facilitators, the objective is to strengthen and clarify a project’s artistic direction, feasibility and marketability for pitching and financing.

To register for the Happy Hours, please find a googleform on our news page, or copy this link onto your search engine:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDIrW6_CffHPQ5aPWI28aDj-9tGiGiIM0WKl14DglG-4nILw/viewform?usp=sf_link

For more information, please email us at cinemovement.sg@gmail.com

HYBRID MOTION

2019

Cinemovement (Singapore), City Contemporary Dance Company (Hong Kong) and West Kowloon Cultural District (Hong Kong) jointly present Hybrid Motion – a collection of 4 creative encounters between dance artists and filmmakers from Singapore and Hong Kong experimenting with the short dance film form. The genres of their inventions range from hybrid documentary, speculative portraiture, interpretive romance to the improvisational absurd; an ode to the panorama of possibilities surrounding the interaction between the performing and audiovisual arts. In this interdisciplinary discourse, the short films explore the dialogues between construction and spontaneity; calculation and instinct; camera and body; art and life. The artists include Aaron Khek Ah Hock , Cheuk Cheung, Elysa Wendi, Jessey Tsang Tsui Shan, Liao Jiekai, Max Lee Kin Wai, Mui Cheuk-yin and Russell Morton.

Invited Artists

  • AARON KHEK X JESSEY TSANG
    • AARON KHEK

      Khek Ah Hock Aaron, choreographer, dancer, creative director. Ah Hock was a scholar from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (1997-2000), an Outreach Director with the Singapore Dance Theatre (2002-2004), commit a short stint with The Arts Fission Company (2000-2002) and the co-founder of AH HOCK and PENG YU (AHPY) with his long time partner Ix Wong. AHPY under the helm of Ah Hock and Ix Wong presented many choreographic works commissioned by Singapore International Arts Festival, Esplanade Theatres by the Bay, The Arts House and most recently by M1 Fringe Festival 2017. In 2009, Ah Hock was appointed the Creative Director for The Night Festival by the National Museum (2009), The Heritage Festival (2009 and 2010). Ah Hock was the recipient of the Singapore Young Artist Award (2005) and his entry of the Smiling Tiger under the platform of CINEMOVEMENT won the 2015 Jumping Frames (HK) Festival for the 1 min Dance Film Competition.

    • JESSEY TSANG

      Jessey Tsang Tsui Shan, Best New Director of the 31st Hong Kong Film Award 2012. Starting with short film productions, works have been presented internationally. In 2008 her first directed feature film Lovers On the Road won the Best Drama Award of the 8th South Taiwan Film Festival. And her second feature Big Blue Lake was succeed internationally, it had won the Jury Special Award of the Golden Koala Chinese Film Festival 2013 and the Asian New Talent Jury Prix of the Shanghai International Film Festival 2012. TSANG finished her French/ Hong Kong co-production feature documentary Flowing Stories in 2014, and her latest Drama Scent also released in mid of August 2014.

  • CHEUK CHEUNG X ELYSA WENDI
    • CHEUK CHEUNG

      Cheuk was born in Hong Kong. He graduated from the School of Film and TV of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. After graduation, he worked for both Hong Kong and international productions in directing department, e.g. Lust, Caution (2007), etc. In 2009, Cheuk was selected to participate in the Golden Horse Film Academy and co-directed the short film Boyfriend of Xiaozhen (2009) which was produced by Hou Hsiao- Hsien. My Way (2012), Cheuk’s first feature-length documentary was commissioned by CNEX Foundation. It was theatrically released in Hong Kong in 2012 and was selected by several festivals and screened in London, New York, Chicago, Bordeaux, Tokyo, Taipei and many more. It received the nomination of Best New Director at the 13th Chinese Film Media Awards. Cheuk was the winner of the Award for Young Artist (Film) in Hong Kong Arts Development Awards 2013. My Next Step (2015), his second documentary about young practitioners of Kunqu Opera was commissioned by Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It was premiered in Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2015 and screened at University of California, Los Angles. Beside filmmaking, Cheuk was the creative coordinator of Hong Kong experimental theatre company Zuni Icosahedron, involved in creation, research and project management.

    • ELYSA WENDI

      Elysa is a multi-disciplinary artist working in between Hong Kong and Singapore. Growing up and educated between Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia with Chinese ancestry, Elysa Wendi was raised to straddle between languages, landscapes and cultural practices in South East Asia with a special touch of assimilation. In year 2008, Wendi ended her chapter of choreographic journey with Arts Fission Singapore as the assistant artistic director with 6 full-length works and other collaborative dance pieces. Since 2009, she has been contemplating on a long journey of exploring works based on the notion of Choreographic Matters in different manifestation. This idea come about as she was beginning to straddles in between disciplines from Film, Dance related works, Performative Installation as well as Photography that deal with the elements of choreographic ideas.

       

  • LIAO JIEKAI X MUI CHEOK YIN
    • LIAO JIEKAI

      Liao Jiekai is a filmmaker, artist and educator based in Singapore. In 2009, he co-founded film collective 13 Little Pictures with like-minded friends and made his debut feature film “Red Dragonflies” the following year, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Jeonju International Film Festival. In 2012, Jiekai was conferred the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council of Singapore. In 2013, his 16mm film installation “Brother’s Quarters” received the Credit Suisse Artist Commissioning Award at the President’s Young Talent Exhibition. In 2016, his short dance film “The Mist”, produced as part of the dance film collective Cinemovement, won the best director prize at the Singapore International Film Festival Silver Screen Awards.

    • MUI CHEUK YIN

      Mui received training in Chinese classical and ethnic dance in Hong Kong. She joined the Hong Kong Dance Company from 1981 to 1990 as the principle dancer. In 1985, she won the Hong Kong Young Choreographer Competition and received a scholarship to study modern dance in New York. Upon returning to Hong Kong, she created works Awakenings in a Dream, Cursive Script and the Diary Series.

      Her major works include Fragrant Garden, Water Music, E-motion, As Quick as Silver, Stories about Certain Women, Eulogy, la grace, Between Bow and String, Of Grandeur and Desolation, Kinetic Body Operatics, Pink Lily, October Red, Duet 3X, The Enigma of Desire – Dali vs Gala, Lot‧us, Shui in Feng‧Shui, Desperately Seeking Miss Blossom, Season N in Seasonal Syndromes, Love.Accidentally, and The Tale of Miles in Triptych.

      Mui  has been invited to many international arts festivals including Hong Kong Arts Festival (1994, 2001), Belgium International Arts Festival (1994), Lisbon Culturgest (1995), Re:Orient Dance Festival in London (1995), Hong Kong Festival at the Berlin Tacheles (1996), la Biennale du danse de Val-de-Marne (1997), Ein Fest in Wuppertal (1998), Venice Biennial Dance Festival (1999), Dancing-World Festival in Copenhagen (2000), the Lyon Biennale de la Danse (2000), Beijing Modern Dance Festival 2001, Dance Biennale Tokyo (2002) and the Images of Asia Festival in Copenhagen (2003). In 2000, Mui was invited by Pina Bausch and Folkwang Tanzstudio to choreograph Whispering Colour and to perform as a guest dancer in The Rite of Spring with Tanztheatre Wuppertal.

  • MAX LEE X RUSSELL MORTON
    • MAX LEE

      Max Lee graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (Musical Theatre Dance). Some of his notable works being the opening ceremony of the “Doha Asian Games” (2006) and Paper Tiger Theatre of Beijing’s “Cool” (2009). He also choreographed for the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong Fringe Club, Unlock Dancing Plaza, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Class 7A Drama Group, Theatre Noir, Jumbo Kids Theatre, Theatre Ronin, Milkyway Image etc.

      Max is a multi-talented artist in the dance scene in Hong Kong. In addition to the choreographer and performer, Max is also a multimedia designer of stage video productions. He has worked with City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong Ballet Group, Make Friends With Puppet, Black Bird Theatre, Unlock Dancing Plaza, Theatre Ronin, etc.  In the dance creation, his choreographic works include Biuguk’s “before the last second” , LCSD’s New Force in Motion Series – “keep in touch” and the two-man show “Broke Guy”. He was Artistic Coordinator, Choreographer and Director of the Fringe Club’s “BIG DANCE Little Red Riding Hood”, which was part of the ArtAlive@Park project, and for the Room 9 Dance Theatre production, “Room 9” and “Home”. His “Silence Box” (2012) and “Talk to me” (2013) were selected part of the 40th & 41st Hong Kong Arts Festival’s The Hong Kong Jockey Club Contemporary Dance Series.

    • RUSSELL MORTON

      Russell Adam Morton is an artist and filmmaker. He is a graduate from The Puttnam School of Film, Lasalle College of the Arts (2010) and obtained an MA in Fine Arts from Camberwell College of the Arts, UAL (2012). His films have been part of the Athens Video Art Festival 2012 and participated in several group shows in London. His film, The Silent Dialogue of All Artworks was screened at the National Museum of Singapore’s 10th Singapore Short Cuts, The Substation’s 4th Experimental Film Forum and the Thai Short Film & Video Festival 2014. The film later went on to win Best Experimental Film at the 5th Singapore Short Film Awards. His second film, Forest of Copper Columns, has won the Cinematic Achievement Award at the Thessaloniki Short Film Festival 2016 and has been selected at several festivals in 2016 including the Thai Short Film & Video Festival, Jogja Netpac Asian Film Festival and Cine Pobre Film Festival.