Description

In a continuing collaboration with Dance Camera West (DCW), the Hammer Museum presents a series of documentaries on modern dance held in the Museum’s Gallery 6. The first film is Alonzo King Goes to Venice, Dikayl, USA, 2004, 25 min. This moving documentary about the extraordinary dancers of Alonzo King’s acclaimed Lines Ballet Company follows the troupe on tour from their rehearsal studio in San Francisco to their performance at the prestigious Venice Biennale’s 2nd International Festival of Contemporary Dance. The second film is Belated Premier, Victor Bocharov, Russia, 2003, 70 min, in Russian with English narration. This screening of archive films found and restored by director Victor Bocharov was originally created by Alexander Shirayev (1867-1941), a well-known character dancer at the Marinsky Theater and assistant to choreographer Marius Petipa. Denied in his attempts to film the Russian ballet theater, Shirayev recreated many of his classical character dance roles by animating figures and creating his own miniature puppet theater leaving an invaluable historical record of Russian dance in the early 20th century.