Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival – Round 4

Now in its 5^th year, Dare To Dance in Public Film Festival (D2D) has announced that the first virtual screening of D2D’s Best of the Fest, Round: 4: PANDEMANIA, will run June 24 – July 1, 2021. Featuring films selected from over 20 countries, D2D Award Winners, Honorable Mentions, Official Selections, and Six Foot Distance Dances, Round: 4: PANDEMANIA will include two virtual programs (A & B). Ticket prices are $12 per program or $20 for both Program A & B (watch trailer below). Just three of the featured films included are “Geister”, “Alone Together”, “Earth Odyssey”. There are many more to enjoy!

D2D is headed by Founder/Artistic & Executive Director Sarah Elgart along with Creative Producer Zoe Rappaport. Elgart is a Los Angeles based choreographer, filmmaker and the Artistic Director of Sarah Elgart/Arrogant Elbow. Her choreography has been presented nationally and internationally and her films include award-winning music videos, dance shorts which continue to be accepted into festivals both here and abroad. Rappaport is a movement director, choreographer & creative producer based in Los Angeles and New York. Rappaport’s varied background as a professional dancer has led her to work with some of the top names in live production, tv/film, editorial, fashion, commercial, content creation and site-specific work over the last 14 years.

Screen shot from “Smokestack Lighting” courtesy of D2D

“In the wake of the pandemic, this year D2D created a theme entitled PANDEMANIA! – an invented word that we define as follows: pan.da.may.nee.uh (noun), a state of abnormally elevated arousal, affect, and energy level due to isolation, frustration, anger, and various strong emotions brought about as a direct result of the Coronavirus, as well as issues/world events e.g. systemic racism, immigration, the environment, LGBTQX & women’s rights, and other pandemics in our collective history. Pandemania frequently ensues in a heightened need for self-expression through movement.” – D2D press release

Since its beginning, Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival has been dedicated to showing work in public as an alternative venues such as studios, schools, and theater stages. D2D presents choreographers who explore “dance as an urgent, potent, universal language… films that transform our ideas of what it is to be human”.

Screen shot from “Near Perfect Synchronization” courtesy of D2D

Each year D2D asks a panel of distinguished judges to select films for the festival and name the award winners. This year’s panel included choreographer and Artistic Director of chuthis Peter Chu; dance educator, choreographer, ethnographer, embodied historian, and author E. Moncell Durden; Executive and Artistic Director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance Kristy Edmunds; and performer, choreographer and Associate Professor & Chair of Dance, College of Communication and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles Rosalynde Le Blanc Loo. This illustrious list of panelist joined Elgart and Rappaport to make selections from over 150 international films.

Sarah Elgart stated that D2D is already busy lining up the judges for next year. As of now, they include Director Adi Halfin (Batsheva’s “Home Alone”) and Creative Movement Director Stephen Galloway.