Zodiak – Centre for New Dance produces four short dance films of different scales and a VR documentary production as part of their project Zodiak Visions. The first release, Kielo is now available on Nowness platform.
The films are in connection to Zodiak’s recent performance program. Directors and choreographers were invited to come together and take one element or aspect of the stage production at hand and plant it into the medium of film, to practice how it could flourish in this new habitat.
Instead of creative documentation of the performances, the aim has been a collaborative process of re-imagining between the choreographers and directors.
Choreographer Janina Rajakangas‘ and artist/filmmaker Sinem Kayacan‘s short film Kielo has just been released on the NOWNESS media platform. Kielo is based on Rajakangas’ work Dancer, a co-production between Zodiak, Kiasma Theatre and CODA Oslo International Dance Festival. Both the stage work and the short film are based on the experiences of neurodivergent young people, especially in a school environment.
NOWNESS is a global cross-cultural media platform with a monthly audience of over 4 million people and around 13 million video views per month.
Other recent films include Everything is Right Before by choreographer Jenni-Elina von Bagh and director-photographer Anna Antsalo, Jellymamamama by dance artist Karolina Ginman and visual artist Hertta Kiiski, and Reddening by choreographer Elina Pirinen and Sinem Kayacan. The films are currently being offered to premiere at international short film festivals. Zodiak will present the films in its programme after the festival circuit.
In addition to the short films, the Visions project has produced a 3D realisation of A Fistful of Funk, a work by the street dance group Will Funk For Food, which premiered last June. The recording can be viewed via the Second Theatre app, on Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro virtual platforms. There is a charge for this service.
The project’s goals are to enrich the afterlife of stage performances which have relatively brief lives, and to bring contemporary dance to new audiences.