Above – Statement

Above is a 10-minute screendance featuring two dancers whose introspective yet dramatic movements tell a story about seeing and being seen. In Above, motifs such as architecture, metal, water, sky are grounded through the film’s choreography, as well as a poem, Encroached, recited by one of the protagonists, about vulnerability through exposure to the elements. The film symbolizes the associations between sentimentality and materiality through the evolving relationship between the dancers. Onscreen, they look toward vast horizons, into the gaze of each other, and into the lens to meet the eyes of the onlooking audience, to see the world anew from high vantage points of architectural remnants.

The music is Fantasy of the Forest by Rory Bricca, a piano piece about how our own fate is tied to that of the planet. Fantasy of the Forest is featured in “Palette to Purpose,” a multi-sensory art exhibit to fundraise for environmental advocacy and cataract surgery, with the motivating question prompting the artists being “What is your ecological vision?” Bricca’s composition features “beautiful major triads in the right hand being interrupted by a dissonant bass melody,” to “capture this juxtaposition between the beauty of nature and the terrifying power that our species has to destroy it.” Bricca’s piano piece is divided into five movements, which guide the film’s edit: “Somber clouds shifting across the sky, An open hand enshrouded by darkness, Tightly bound red string of fate, A radiating glimmer of hope appears, and The world lies in our hands.” // On Rory Bricca’s Piano composition

Directed, Choreographed, Filmed, & Edited by Lily Selthofner

Dancers: Adara Allen and Desislava Kreminlieva

Piano composed and performed by Rory Bricca – Fantasy of the Forest

Poem Encroached written by Lily Selthofner, performed by Desislava Kreminlieva