"The Cell," a short dance film produced by B.DANCE's choreographer and artistic director Tsia Po Cheng (蔡博丞) and emerging filmmaker Ho Meng Hsueh (何孟學), has been selected for the 51st edition of the Dance on Camera Festival. It will have its North American premiere as part of "Program 3: Global Shorts" on Feb. 11 at Film at Lincoln Center.
B.DANCE was founded by Tsai in 2014. Since then, Tsai has presented several original pieces to an international audience and received critical acclaim. In 2018, tanz, a German magazine, included Tsai as one of 2017/2018 most promising young choreographers around the world. Moreover, Tsai was named as the "best emerging choreographer of the year" by the France National Board of Performance Arts in 2020 and one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Persons" in Taiwan in 2021.
The Cell was originally Tsai's fifth full-length dance work in 2022, but due to the pandemic, all in-person performances around the world were canceled. However, thanks to a special subsidy program launched by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture and National Performing Arts Center, Tsai, in collaboration with Ho, was able to adopt the original creative idea of "The Cell" to produce a dance film. This format allows "The Cell" to be accessible to a broader audience, including many viewers who would not have been able to see the performance live.
According to B.DANCE, "The Cell" is a surreal piece on separation and dissociation, inspired by the feelings of loneliness and social isolation prevalent during the pandemic. The official film introduction used for Dance on Camera Festival 2023 has been provided below:
"In these post-pandemic times, a bright white light floods the stage and begins to speak: close your eyes, come with me toward the supernormal, let’s go, go to that transcendent space-time jump. Every character is in the dancer, so which one is real? On the verge of disassociation, light leaks into shadow, a new day dawns. Today, which self will go along?"
The Dance on Camera Festival, presented by Dance Films Association and Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), is the longest-running dance film festival in the world. This year, the festival will take place from February 10-13, featuring 13 programs and a total of 30 new films, which were selected from more than 290 submissions representing 35 countries.
"This year's Dance on Camera Festival showcases a rich international collection of films that offer insightful profiles of visionary artists and stories that touch the heart," said co-curator Michael Trusnovec.
For additional information regarding the festival, please visit Film at Lincoln Center at filmlinc.org and Dance Films Association at dancefilms.org.