Poem

Poem is a duet between two women
between the camera and what is captured
between a physical world and one imagined
like yin and yang
both inseparable and apart

Poem was filmed in august 2007, throughout an old residential building in brooklyn, new york. editing and post-production was completed in december. it is a 6 minute duet performed by two women. Our mission was to create an alternate reality/space for the audience to enter, based on familiar private places people pass through every day: a bathtub, a staircase, and a roof top. In these real spaces, a relationship between the dancers, both real and unreal, is formed. We created the movements and editing to have a subtle rhythm that carries the audience through the experience at a pace that disrupts analytical thinking, guiding the viewer to sense a relationship in the duet.
The sound design is built on actual recordings from the piece’s location, to emphasize its existent atmosphere. different spaces’ sounds overlap between the cuts to heighten the viewer’s sense of the dancers’ connection.

The worlds of the dancers are both inseparable and disjointed. color choices in costumes and locations bring their worlds together like Yin and Yang, a contrast that rhymes. one dancer is running, the other is incapable of moving, both stay in place, but their literal relation is not revealed until the end.

Supported by:
American Scandinavian Society

Screenings:
Triskelion Arts (Premiere), New York 2007
Dance Camera West, Los Angeles 2008
Dança Em Foco, Rio de Janeiro 2008
VideodanzaBa, Buenos Aires 2008
Dance on Camera (Judson Church screening), New York 2009
Strasbourg International Film Festiva, Strasbourg 2009
LOIKKA Dance Film Festival, Helsinki 2009
Dansens Dage/Danish Filminstitute’s Cinemateque, Copenhagen 2010
and more…

Credits:
Dancers: Saskia Hannemann, Maia Elisabeth Sørensen
Director of Photography, editing and effects: Brandon Jacobs-Mills
Sound: Taavi Rämmar
Lights: Brandon Jacobs-Mills
Costumes: Maia Eilsabeth Sørensen
Assistants on set: Levi Steffensen, Kristina Skovby, Ernesto Arencibia
Choreographed, directed and produced by: Maia Elisabeth Sørensen