Cinedans x ND
Breaking the Chains

In the 1940s, British colonial film officer William Sellers of the Colonial Film Unit, developed a model for colonial cinema. The Colonial Film Unit produced hundreds of films across British colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Its rigid visual grammar was defined by slow edits, minimal camera movement, and the absence of cinematic “tricks.”

In an effort to recuperate black dance from this colonial project, Specialised Technique seeks to transform this material from a studied spectacle into a state of livingness. Through a practice of critical proximity — being close to, with, and among the visual trauma — the film aims to change how we come to know the people it contains.

This is what freedom feels like, baby.” The uncompromising words of musician and writer Mykki Blanco echo over a transcendental parade of a group of empowered queer dancers. A film about the French black queer community taking pride in who they are, what they have achieved, and embracing the bodies they are in.

Tajabone takes its name from a unique tradition in Senegal, where in addition to singing and dancing through the streets everyone practices cross dressing through the night.

An old man awakens in a deforested rubber estate and finds himself in the colonial past. A distant folk song ripples through the landscape as he slips into the eternal loop of rubber tapping.

When a video of kids dancing in the rain goes viral, it brings global attention to an unlikely ballet school outside Lagos, Nigeria. Now, Daniel Ajala -- who learned ballet over YouTube -- is training students to perform on the world stage.

When memories from his childhood come to the surface, Derik Lynch, a Yankunytjatjara man, escapes white city life in Adelaide to return back home to his remote Anangu Community (Aputula) to perform on sacred Inma ground.

Inma is a traditional form of visual, verbal, and physical storytelling. It is how the Anangu have been passing down stories connected to the land, dreams and myths for over 60,000+ years from generation to generation.

In a world where identity is distorted by the gaze of others, a surreal tribe of beings embarks on a journey of unravelling transformation through movement. At once unsettling and liberating, this short dance film fuses physical theatre, twerking and poetic abstraction to question who we become when we are being watched and what we reclaim when we dare to define ourselves.