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Short Films

Le Ballet des porcelaines

Le Ballet des porcelaines

• Co-created by Meredith Martin & Phil Chan
• Realized by Alan Fleisher

A piece of music and dance was written for fun by an 18th-century French aristocrat and was later found by an American researcher in a library in Paris. The work tells the story of characters in a porcelain pot. The work was performed by American dancers and Italian musicians for two French gentlemen: one directed the Capodimonte museum in Naples (with the famous Chinese collection) the other was at the head of the Palazzo Grassi-Pinault Foundation in Venice. The story travels and dances from one place to another. Le Ballet des porcelaines is choreographed by Chinese American dancer Phil Chan. 

Necessary Death

Necessary Death

Through the kaleidoscopes of a desolate world, Necessary Death follows the last two people alive trying to escape an apocalyptic chemical wasteland. 

Credits

• Direction and Choreography: Ishita Mili
• Featuring: Krishna Basude
• Cinematography and Editing: Justin Monte
• Producer: IMGE
• Music: Rotana

Reclaiming Us

Reclaiming Us

• Created and Directed by Lauren DeVera
• Filmed by: David Dowling

See an excerpt of Reclaiming Us, a short dance film is dedicated to the AAPI community. This song, in both Tagalog (a Filipino language) and English, represents both the privilege and price of being from a marginalized community. It’s a reclamation of our power, pride in our Filipino and Asian culture, and a reminder to be bold, take up space, and share your story.

Love Letter

Love Letter

• Choreographed by Caili Quan
• Filmmakers: Nathaniel Brown & Elliot deBruyn

Love Letter is a tribute to my family and upbringing on Guam. This excerpt is inspired by my mahålang for home, the Chamorro word that encompasses the longing and missing of someone, something, or some place.

Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust

• Co-created by Yayoi Kambara and Brian Staufenbiel
• Directed by Brian Staufenbiel

Out of the Dust is a dance film dedicated to the memory of Japanese American poet and child incarceree Janice Mirikitani. In the film, ghosts of Manzanar Detention Camp come to life through poetry, music, and movement. After the closing of the camps, who and what memories were left behind in the windy dust-laden desert of Manzanar?

Hái Hoa

Hái Hoa

Filmmaker: Loan Hoang

Hái Hoa is a reclamation of what it means to be femme by reimagining traditional constructs of Vietnamese femininity through music, fashion, and representation.

Bini-Bae-Laki

Bini-Bae-Laki

• Directed by Marc Nuñez
• Choreographed and Performed by Marc Nuñez & Michael Ternasky-Holland

Bini-Bae-Laki is inspired by our Filipinx Two-spirit ancestors, who are neither male nor female. The movement is a fusion of Filipinx folk dance, contemporary and street styles, choreographed and danced by Marc Nuñez and Michaela Ternasky-Holland; filmed and edited by Grant Hao-Wei Lin; and music by Gingee.

In-Visible

In-Visible

Directed and Choreographed by: Jesse Obremski

Stemming from the AAPI hate crimes of 2021, In-Visible touches on the all-too-common experience of AAPI individuals of feeling unheard, unrecognized, and unseen. Many say that invisibility is a fabulous superpower, but this work questions how “super” it is when it is oppressed onto you.

Sunrise On Red

Sunrise On Red

Directed, Choreographed, and Starring Lam Nguyen 

Sunrise on Red was an official selection of Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival (D2D), where it was screened at RED AT in Los Angeles, in January 2020, and won an Award for Most Original Movement. Lam Nguyen is a dancer and choreographer, and an official ¶Ù2¶Ù Ambassador. The Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival presents films that explore dance as an urgent, visceral, universal language about what it is to be human and alive in the world TODAY. To submit to ¶Ù2¶Ù go to:  

“When the light turns red, the other turns green, and the traffic never stops. Just like the sun, it is consistently rising from one place to another. Never setting and always rising.” 
—Lam

Ten Times Better

Ten Times Better

Directed by Jennifer Lin

Ten Times Better tells the astonishing story of an 89-year-old Chinese American blackjack dealer in Las Vegas with an unheralded place in ballet and Broadway history. His remarkable past spans dancing as child in Shanghai nightclubs in the 1940s, to originating the “Tea” dance in George Balanchine’s 1954 premiere of The Nutcracker, before catching the eye of Gene Kelly who cast him in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song.