The Theatre and Dance Department (TAD) held a screening of “Dances on Film” on Friday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 26, at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
The project was directed by TAD adjunct faculty Tori Lawrence, who was assisted by Ellie Goudie-Averill.
The performance began with three of Lawrence’s previous films, “Faultline,” “Osterlen,” and “Pink Noise.” After a short break came the main film, “Fieldsounds.” The film was shot with 16mm and featured Keene State dance students. Since 16mm film doesn’t record sound, students performed the sound foley live on stage.
Lawrence said she got the idea for live sound foley for her 16mm films from her work at Middlebury College.
“I was thinking about how to bring a live performance aspect to a 2-D film,” Lawrence said. “I decided to work with my collaborator Seth Wenger, and we worked together on figuring out what kind of sounds we wanted to enhance from the film.”
Lawrence said that her films don’t have any kind of story.
“A lot of my work really just starts with the body and a site,” she said. “And just generating movement for movement’s sake rather than having a story.”
Lawrence said that her favorite part of the process was filming.
“I had the most fun with dancers driving around in the early fall of western Mass., connecting outside and putting all of the movement scores that we’re working on from the studio and placing them into the site and just seeing how it changed,” she said.
First-year Charlie Sydnor, one of the dancers in “Fieldsounds,” said she auditioned because of the unique opportunity.
“It’s my first production at Keene, and it just seemed really cool, especially with the live sound foley features that we’re doing,” she said.
“This really brought me closer with all of the other dance majors, which was really awesome because I have such a more connected community here now.”
Senior Cassidy White, another “Fieldsounds” dancer, said that she auditioned for the project to gain experience.
“I’m honestly just trying to get every show under my belt that I can before I graduate,” White said, “but I’ve never done a dance film ever.”
White said her favorite part of the experience was traveling to the location where the film was shot in western Mass.
“We’re [dance students] used to dancing here, so it’s doing something completely out of the ordinary,” she said, “Tori and Ellie had us do things out of our comfort zone.”
First-year audience member Arrow Hines said that he attended the showing to support his friend.
“They were telling me about how good a time they had, and they really liked the experience that they got,” Hines said.
“I really liked how much nature was in a lot of the films, and how they were able to make their own kind of sound effects to go with the film.”
Emily Sloane can be contacted at
esloane@kscequinox.com
