This Thursday (Dec. 7) look for the flashing lights outside the Bijou theater at 4 pm, and join Francesa Penzani (Dance-IM MFA 99), faculty member of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts, for a first look at her newest dance film, Double Up.
Penzani’s film features energetic and improvisational performances by CalArts alumni Nedra Wheeler (MFA Music 89), double bass and voice, and tap dancer Kyreeana Breelin (BFA Dance 16). The film is as much a celebration of collaboration as it is a documentation of what feels like a live jazz concert.
In an email Penzani says, “The idea for Double Up came from a need to create a poem/voice through images and sounds that are visceral and allow the artistic expression of two wonderful and talented artists/women of African American origins to make a piece, a conversation, a statement about their power of being women artists in an increasingly difficult social and political environment in the USA.”
For the making of Double Up, Penzani had a fairly large crew of 20 people, mainly CalArts students and alumni, who were working on a dance film for the first time. She notes, “On this project, I didn’t have a storyboard because I wanted to work on sensations and non-verbal communication between the two performers, who had never met before and come from two different generations.”
The official premiere of Double Up is happening this Friday (Dec. 8), as part of the Vision Dance Film Festival in Taiwan. The festival is organized and directed by CalArts alum Pei-hsuan Li (Dance MFA 07).
Double Up was created in part through Penzani’s participation in the 2017 Evelyn Sharp/CalArts Summer Choreographic Residency.
Check out the trailer for Penzani’s dance film below:
Event Details
Double Up by Francesca Penzani
Thursday, Dec. 7 at 4:10 pm and 4:40 pm
CalArts Bijou Theater
Free