Stockholm Dance Film Festival- a dance film meeting point
Stockholm Dansfilmfestival was founded in 2015 and has shown over 200 dance films since then. Since the start the festival has worked to strengthen the dance film field by being a meeting place and platform for dance film creators. With the idea of community building as well as being a hub for knowledge to grow, we want to be a place for the local community to expand and connect with the international context of dance film. We aim to be a forum for the wide spectrum of dance film to be screened, and to honor the blurred borders of movement, body, dance and cinematography.
“We want more people to experience dance film! The art form is constantly breaking new boundaries for choreographic and cinematografic work, and with Stockholm Dance Film Festival we’d like to open the space to explore its multifaceted nature of expression and thematics.”
Sara Andrén, Nelly Zagora, Yari Stilo, Adam Seid Tahir
Sara Andrén
I graduated from The Royal Swedish Ballet School in 2011 and have worked as a dancer, choreographer and producer since then. My first dance film was called 60 Marbles Tunnel and was screened at the pilot festival of Stockholm Dansfilmfestival in 2015. I became part of the team right after. I’m drawn to films that take me by surprise. Perhaps the surprise tells more about me than about the film, what my expectations and reference points where beforehand. That’s also what’s sparking an interest for me in curating this festival, to take part of a wide range of works and entry points. I see it as our mutual challenge as organizers to not let our own reference points direct the development of dance film, but rather to let the artform grow from the context that we create. When I think about future dance film festivals, I think of a dance film festival that takes place and interacts with the city; with buildings, parks, or cafes. A choreographed screening in the setting of a film festival.
Nelly Zagora
Born, raised and now based in Stockholm I have become a part of the cities artistic freelance community. I have created short art movies since I was a child, after my education at Balettakademien Stockholm I created my first dance film. At the same time I arranged the first edition of Stockholm Dansfilmfestival with some great colleagues. My dream then and now is to have a soft place for conversation and community in an often competitive business. A place to share ones art and exchange experiences around it. The art form dance film is for me something that we still can develop and create together with more freedom because it hasn’t been fully defined yet. This makes me excited to curate the festival. I get struck by the unexpected in a movie, the bodily empathy that comes from seeing a movement from an interesting angle or the way a camera can caress its focus.
Yari Stilo
I have a dance background and in the last fifteen years, I have been performing and living around Europe. In May 2018 I graduated at the MA in choreography at DOCH (Dans och Cirkushögskolan). In 2017 my performance Homing Pigeon and Friends have been presented in Montreal (Canada) for the Regards Hybrides: An International Forum, an event dedicated to the interaction between dance and cinema. I have been following with enthusiasm the Stockholm Dansfilmfestival and I got charmed by its playful setting and its diverse variety of films. I am now a co-curator of the festival and I wish to learn through the curatorial practice. The first approach I had with dance film was a natural expansion of my love for cinema and dance. Lately, dance film became for me a way to reflect on questions that concern identity, self-image, and vulnerability. When I watch a dance film often intrigues me how the corporeality of dance is crafted together with the visual narrative of films. I am also very often touched by the capacity of sound to relate with the abstraction of dance.
Adam Seid Tahir
After graduating from The Royal Swedish Ballet School I’ve worked as a dancer and performer in various contexts. I’ve also continued to work on two big interests of mine which are computer science and film. 2018 I did a collaboration with Index foundation and created the dance film ”hyperskin.”. This connected me with Stockholm Dansfilmfestival and I’ve been working in the team since 2019.
My utopian dance film festival would be a place for people to wander around and immerse themselves in ways of thought and ideas from all over the world. It would be in a forest or an old factory and the artists would have their own private space to install their films. The architecture, smell and light in every room would be shaped for the purpose of every film.
Films that spark my interest are usually those with a bold and non-traditional aesthetic and thematic. I love being dragged into another person’s universe. Immersed in a vision that is far from my own. I also love being perplexed, and the mystery of not understanding.
Stockholm Dance Film Festival- a dance film meeting point
Stockholm Dansfilmfestival was founded in 2015 and has shown over 200 dance films since then. Since the start the festival has worked to strengthen the dance film field by being a meeting place and platform for dance film creators. With the idea of community building as well as being a hub for knowledge to grow, we want to be a place for the local community to expand and connect with the international context of dance film. We aim to be a forum for the wide spectrum of dance film to be screened, and to honor the blurred borders of movement, body, dance and cinematography.
“We want more people to experience dance film! The art form is constantly breaking new boundaries for choreographic and cinematografic work, and with Stockholm Dance Film Festival we’d like to open the space to explore its multifaceted nature of expression and thematics.”
Sara Andrén, Nelly Zagora, Yari Stilo, Adam Seid Tahir
Sara Andrén
I graduated from The Royal Swedish Ballet School in 2011 and have worked as a dancer, choreographer and producer since then. My first dance film was called 60 Marbles Tunnel and was screened at the pilot festival of Stockholm Dansfilmfestival in 2015. I became part of the team right after. I’m drawn to films that take me by surprise. Perhaps the surprise tells more about me than about the film, what my expectations and reference points where beforehand. That’s also what’s sparking an interest for me in curating this festival, to take part of a wide range of works and entry points. I see it as our mutual challenge as organizers to not let our own reference points direct the development of dance film, but rather to let the artform grow from the context that we create. When I think about future dance film festivals, I think of a dance film festival that takes place and interacts with the city; with buildings, parks, or cafes. A choreographed screening in the setting of a film festival.
Nelly Zagora
Born, raised and now based in Stockholm I have become a part of the cities artistic freelance community. I have created short art movies since I was a child, after my education at Balettakademien Stockholm I created my first dance film. At the same time I arranged the first edition of Stockholm Dansfilmfestival with some great colleagues. My dream then and now is to have a soft place for conversation and community in an often competitive business. A place to share ones art and exchange experiences around it. The art form dance film is for me something that we still can develop and create together with more freedom because it hasn’t been fully defined yet. This makes me excited to curate the festival. I get struck by the unexpected in a movie, the bodily empathy that comes from seeing a movement from an interesting angle or the way a camera can caress its focus.
Yari Stilo
I have a dance background and in the last fifteen years, I have been performing and living around Europe. In May 2018 I graduated at the MA in choreography at DOCH (Dans och Cirkushögskolan). In 2017 my performance Homing Pigeon and Friends have been presented in Montreal (Canada) for the Regards Hybrides: An International Forum, an event dedicated to the interaction between dance and cinema. I have been following with enthusiasm the Stockholm Dansfilmfestival and I got charmed by its playful setting and its diverse variety of films. I am now a co-curator of the festival and I wish to learn through the curatorial practice. The first approach I had with dance film was a natural expansion of my love for cinema and dance. Lately, dance film became for me a way to reflect on questions that concern identity, self-image, and vulnerability. When I watch a dance film often intrigues me how the corporeality of dance is crafted together with the visual narrative of films. I am also very often touched by the capacity of sound to relate with the abstraction of dance.
Adam Seid Tahir
After graduating from The Royal Swedish Ballet School I’ve worked as a dancer and performer in various contexts. I’ve also continued to work on two big interests of mine which are computer science and film. 2018 I did a collaboration with Index foundation and created the dance film ”hyperskin.”. This connected me with Stockholm Dansfilmfestival and I’ve been working in the team since 2019.
My utopian dance film festival would be a place for people to wander around and immerse themselves in ways of thought and ideas from all over the world. It would be in a forest or an old factory and the artists would have their own private space to install their films. The architecture, smell and light in every room would be shaped for the purpose of every film.
Films that spark my interest are usually those with a bold and non-traditional aesthetic and thematic. I love being dragged into another person’s universe. Immersed in a vision that is far from my own. I also love being perplexed, and the mystery of not understanding.
