If Picks 3 were a dinner party, it would carry on late into the night, slipping into the realm in between this and that. We end our 2024 Festival with 9 films that evoke geological and bodily time, grief's many longings and stalemates, the horrors of piecing ourselves back together, the refreshment of piecing ourselves back together, and we follow our dance elders as they offer themselves to the luminous mundanity of a life given to the dance of it all. These films come to us from the USA, China, Spain, Japan, and Sweden. Picks 3 runs ~1hr. 50min.

Where Once There Was Water (United States)

Where Once There Was Water is a film from The Rosin Box Project with Choreography and Direction by Mike Tyus and Luca Renzi. Created for stage, and film adaptation, it premiered live in San Diego in August of 2023.

Poet (China)

“Poet” is a dance film inspired by Chinese poet Yu Xiuhua, a rural woman with cerebral palsy, who recently became famous in China. Many started to know her works from her audacious Poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You”. Living in a conservative rural village in southern China where prejudice against women, disability, and divorce are high, she managed to break free from an unwanted marriage and live her life as a writer despite the satirical voices around.

“Yu Xiuhua’s poem came into my life when I was trapped in the question of “why do I dance?”. Her poems share a raw intimacy with all the simple strength in nature, the grain, river, and mountain… Her words are like grains of wheat, rooted deeply into the earth, dancing upwards, full of unwavering determination to live vigorously and on her own terms. Despite her disability, pain, and struggles, she holds a nearly insane dedication and pursuit for exuberant vitality. This unbattered persistence touched my soul, and that is the moment I realized that I dance out of my most sincere love and reverence to life, all lives.” -Yang Sun

“I wonder where her clarity and courage come from, but there are many metaphors of wheat and nature in her writings. I found that people are often touched by nature in the most difficult moments, such as the incredible survival of animals or plants in harsh environments. When juniper is made into a specimen, it can still come back to life when it encounters water. The swelling of plants can penetrate through cracks in rocks. Significant or small, there exists this natural and primitive force to survive. So are her poems, they are fueled with primitive forces to live and survive.”
– Mofei Wei

This is a dance film dedicated to the vigor, courage, struggle, fight, freedom, love for nature Yu Xiuhua has inspired in all of us.

carefully (United States)

Carefully explores the space between memory and reality. In a series of vignettes, throughout a day’s time, we intimately see what was, what is, and what could be- or what never existed at all.

Cendres / Cinders (Spain)

A man ascends through a dry and inhospitable landscape, searching for the appropriate place to perform his intimate and personal rite of expiation, as a vital need to reconnect with his environment and his present.

Now I Hold You Close (United States)

A woman suffering from night terrors uncovers layers of disassociation in a final effort to awaken wholeness.

Danser avec le temps / Dancing with Time (Canada)

Dancing with Time features four Montreal dancer-choreographers facing the challenge of aging. Erin Flynn (40s), José Navas (50s), Louise Bédard (60s) and Paul-André Fortier (70s) reflect about how they deal with their changing bodies and the demands of the artistic world. As they answer the question “As an artist, what have you gained with age?”, we discover how they face the challenges of aging with kindness, humility and creativity.

Through their testimonies, we observe the strengths that age can bring to these movement artists. Without denying the grief and adaptations they have faced, they tell us about the gains they have made with the recognition and growing acceptance of the fragility of their bodies. What binds us to their stories are their gains in patience, compassion, and love, as well as the urgency to live and create that seem to assert themselves with the passage of time.

a foreigner (United States)

Once a person is a foreigner, she never ceases to be a foreigner. No place is hers, except her shadow. This film features award-winning, movement-based interdisciplinary artist Eiko Otake, who has been a pivotal figure in site-specific dance for more than five decades.

‘a foreigner’ was filmed during Eiko Otake’s ‘i invited myself vol. II’ exhibition at the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College in 2023.

一戏·一生 / My role·My life (China)

Wandering in the corners of space, discovering surprises in both black and white time and space; The multifaceted life collides with new sparks through the dialogue between modernity and opera. The art of traditional Chinese aesthetics – traditional Chinese opera and modern people have a certain degree of consistency, showcasing life and the joys and sorrows of the world,; Use points, lines, surfaces, space, and minimalist colors to showcase.

Last Boy Left (Sweden)

A reflection on mourning a loved one and the process of moving on, Last Boy Left is an experimental short film featuring dance. The film follows a man on a road trip who aims to tie up loose ends left behind by his deceased brother. Filmed in the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden, the film is set in landscapes that echo the emptiness left behind by those who depart too soon. The internal landscapes of the characters are metaphorically expressed using movement; abstractly embodying memory, emotion and exploring how we process the complex emotions following love lost.

More info about the festival and each film at portlanddancefilmfest.com

If you are in need of financial support for tickets, please don't hesitate to reach out to portlanddancefilmfest@gmail.com.