Claire Marshall

48th Dance on Camera Festival Lincoln Centre NYC: 
“Shift” by Claire Marshall: Judging Status = “SELECTED”

I’m thrilled to report that my dance film “Shift”has been accepted into the 48^th Dance on Camera Festival Lincoln Centre NYC. Inaugurated in 1971, this prestigious festival is the longest running dance film festival, and has an incredibly history with the work it has programmed. 

You can read more about the festival here:

Dance on Camera

Shift was created as an experiment as a part of my Master of Fine Arts (Dance) at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne last year. This is the first time my work has ever been selected for programming by this festival. 

Due to COVID19 and regulations in NYC, the festival will be online this year so that means it will be viewable from Australia! My film screens Sunday morning of the 19^th  of July (aka late at 2am on the Saturday).

Tickets go on sale on the 1st of July 2020. The schedule is here:

In the lead up to the screening, the festival requested an interview with dancers Lucy Hood, Richard Causer, cinematographer Kevin Holloway and myself as the choreographer and editor of the film. We were interviewed by Alicia Graf Mack – former dancer with Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey, and current Director of the Dance Division at The Juilliard School!! The interview was recorded by former Paul Taylor company dancer, Michael Trusnovec!! It was truly such an honour to meet Alicia and Paul.

Once again, thanks to the small team who worked on this film: Richard Causer, Lucy Hood, Kevin Holloway, and friends who let us film at their place/ business/ birthday parties, as well as Amelia Le-Bherz for doing make-up over the 4 day shoot. 

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Someone recently pointed out that it is the year 2020 and my two showreels present work from 2000-2009. The “stage” and “screen” showreels were beautifully edited by Jane Wallace in 2009. That was before I had made a lot of work including Hey Scenester, Slowdive, Video Set, and Flaunt, and not to mention long before having commenced dabbling with dance film and even more daunting: editing my choreography.

My first dance film “Pulse” in 2012, was filmed with hand held DSLRs, thanks to Jane Wallace and my brother (filmmaker) Grant. Upon completion of the shoot, they informed me that it was time for me to learn to edit my own work. I was initially reluctant, however they patiently mentored me through editing Pulse. I had some struggles as it was engrained from years of making and seeing dance for the stage to want to frame the whole body, so learning to use mid-shots and close-ups took time. With more practice I eventually realised what an important tool editing was; not just for the sake of editing, but as an additional layer to the choreography.

As a choreographic tool, editing has changed processes by how I choreograph live work. When piecing work together, rehearsals are recorded and dropped into a time-line, replacing old forms of using Post-it notes!

My understanding of a showreel is to promote work and highlight the best parts. However, in making a showreel sometimes the editing drives a new story, carving micro narratives and, for dance, how the movement connects is an important factor. Each snippet of dance when cut together from various works (as existing stories) then essentially forms a ‘new dance’ in the edit with the music and cinematic elements all suggesting some sort of meaning or evoking emotion.

Needing to update my 2009 showreels, I assessed footage and decided to make a few showreels around the categories of my work as these have different audiences/ functions/ aesthetics.

Editing the dance film projects saw two different 5-minute reels emerge.

Dance film reel version 1:

Dance film reel version 2

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Saturday, October 22 | 9:30 pm

Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco

Ward of State was screened tonight in the San Francisco Dance Film Festival in the last of the International Shorts section. It was surreal to see my film overseas. It has been screen internationally in North America, London, Italy, and in Mexico, but I’ve never been present to see it screened overseas until the festival tonight.

The San Francisco Dance Film Festival runs for 5 days at the Brava Theatre.

Following the screening, the choreographers/ producers were invited on stage to talk about their work. (I only made one Dad joke).

The Festival commenced with the US premiere of Rudolf Nureyev: Dance to Freedom and was a stand out – a 90 min film focused on his defection from Russia. AMAZING! This was screened at the beautiful Taube Atrium Theater, Veterans Building with a very informative Q&A with the director. I stayed until the end when people were leaving and took a photo of this theatre.

Here’s some photos from the past 3 days in San Francisco and at the festival.

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