THE OPPOSITE OF A BLACK HOLE

2022 - 2023

Following the selection of a 2020 Screendance project ‘erms?’ [see page 10] as part of the International Screendance Festival Freiburg 2021, this project was a commission from the Festival International de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne, made in collaboration with Tasha-Hess Nesutadt, Madison Pomarico and Jake Burgess. Our research, whilst existing as a stand-alone project, would form part of a 50 minute collective Screendance entitled Somnambulists for an Ensemble, created as a compilation of segments from 10 selected international female artists.

The project pulls from the renowned experimental filmmaker Maya Deren's unfinished dance film Ensemble for Somnambulists (1951). The invitation was for the artists to create their own vision of what a finished version of this film would look like, freely reimagined and adapted to our times. The work is both a tribute to Maya Deren, a personal statement by the artists involved, and a commentary about our present situation from global female perspectives. 
The opposite of a Black Hole is a digital flaneur, an audiovisual journey through the wandering mind of a pinhole camera, exploring the clashing of old and new technologies in relation to the dancing body and the moving image.

The film meanders through homages to old cinema romance, existential dread, and glitch-feminist fantasy, all the while paying tribute to the pioneering figure of Maya Deren.

The opposite of a black hole is a disembodied reflection on what we are made of. It imagines the relations of dust, DNA & pixels to the human body, as well as the malleability of human flesh and voice in the digital realm.  The wandering pinhole voices the pleasure of thinking as entertainment, the transformation of thinking to panicking, and the many contradictions of our times, through dreams, nightmares, and tangential distractions.

The artists seek to enter inside the universe of their tributee, digitally penetrating the boundaries of culture and technology that prevent us from time travelling to meet our predecessors - with curiosity, humour, and reverence.

SCREENINGS:

Premiere: October 20th 2022, Festival de Vidéo Danse de Bourgogne & L’arc at Château de la Verrerie, Le Creusot FR [October 2022]

Coctelito de Videodanza 2022-2023 Season, Mexico [November 2023]

Fieldworks Dance London Screening [January 2023 ]

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CREDITS:
Co-Direction: Rebecca Douglass, Tasha-Hess-Neustadt, Madison Pomarico

Choreography, performance: Rebecca Douglass and Tasha Hess-Neustadt

Camera: Madison Pomarico

Editing & Animation: Madison Pomarico

Text: Rebecca Douglass and Tasha Hess-Neustadt

Sound: Jake Burgess

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