Dance On Screen is the newest addition to Detroit Dance City Festival, providing a space for dance filmmakers to present their work. Presented at the majestic Detroit Institute of Arts, Dance On Screen highlights local, national and international dance films in diverse styles of dance.
Read about our 2024 filmmakers
Jon Leonard Chapdelaine, “Soul: That which breathes”
Jon Chapdelaine is a Senior building his BFA Dance Major degree at Wayne State University. With a passion to artistically create, expression has taken many forms from dance, visual arts, and construction. Jon has trained on scholarship with Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Grand Rapids Ballet, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Wayne State University and BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY. Contemporary partnering has always been a backbone of his dancer studies, bringing him to New York for YAGP Finals, a feature of his co-choreographed work on Detroit Public Television, and performance with BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY at CPR in New York. Jon has just finished development of his latest dance film in relation to his Senior Capstone Project titled “Soul: That which breathes”.
Liudmila Komrakova, “Cats. Why do we need them?”
Mehdi Sli, Nourddine Sli, “Stork Fiction”
Katherine Helen Fisher, “scattered. place.”
Katherine Helen Fisher is a filmmaker, director, producer, choreographer and performer. She is co-founder of Los Angeles-based Safety Third Productions, a media company designing short-form movement-based digital content.
Katherine was a member of The Lucinda Childs Dance Company between 2008 and 2019. She has also performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, MOMIX, ODC San Francisco, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Andrew Ondrejcak, and Ann Carlson among others and was an ensemble member of the Philip Glass opera Einstein On The
Beach directed by Robert Wilson.
She has movement directed music videos for Radiohead and Rufus Wainwright, as well as directed branded content for Hermès, Microsoft, Biotherm, Nonesuch and XL Recordings. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Smithsonian, Georgia Tech, the Palm Springs Art Museum, La Menagerie de Verre in Paris, Danspace Project, Jusdson Church, Art Basil Switzerland, The Hammer Museum and LA Dance Project and The National Center for Choreography. Her participatory performance garment, LeMonstre, won a Jury Prize for Best Paper at The 21st International Symposium on Wearable Computers. Her film, CEILING won an award at The San Fransisco Dance Film Festival.
She holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Kara Madden Brems, “Chasing (Me)mory”
Julia Yezbick, “Quarantine Chronicles”
Julia Yezbick is a filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist. She received her PhD in Media Anthropology and Critical Media Practice from Harvard University and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester. Her creative work has been exhibited at various international festivals and venues including the Berlin International Film Festival, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the New York Library for Performing Arts, Station Arts Space (Beirut), the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Broad Underground Film series (Lansing), the AgX Film Collective (Boston), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. Yezbick is the Executive Editor of Sensate, a journal for experiments in critical media practice; co-directs Mothlight Microcinema in Detroit, and is an Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Studies at Wayne State University.
Audrey Baran, “Catch”
Audrey Baran (she / her) is a Filipina-American dance maker, performer, and educator based in the land of Catawba people / Charlotte, North Carolina. She holds a MFA in Dance from Hollins University and a BA in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance. She has a Graduate Certificate in Anti-Racism in Urban Education and is co-chair of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee of NCDEO. As the founder and artistic director of contemporary dance company Baran Dance, Baran is dedicated to broadening definitions and accessibility of contemporary dance throughout the Southeast by presenting collaborative, multimedia productions in a variety of venues. Her professional and educational choreography has been described as, “a fully human place with honesty, courage and creativity percolating simultaneously.” Through every creative and pedagogical process, Audrey insists on horizontal dynamics and equitable collaboration among diverse bodies in motion. Baran was a selected choreographer for the Joffrey Ballet Academy’s Winning Works 2022 Choreographic Competition and Charlotte Ballet’s Innovative: Direct from the LAB 2021. She was the 2019 UNC Charlotte Department of Dance Distinguished Alum, an inaugural recipient of the Creative Renewal Fellowship from Charlotte’s Arts and Science Council, and has received awards from the Movies by Movers Festival and the Charlotte Emerging Dance Awards. Baran has presented work in the Richmond Dance Festival, Sites in the City, FEMMEfest, the National Dance Educators Organization Conference, Bill Evans Somatic Dance Conference, the North Carolina Dance Festival, Tobacco Road Dance Productions, Triangle Dance Project, Ladyfest CLT, Charlotte Dance Festival and numerous self-produced productions. Baran is a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher and thrives on sharing her research on the intersection of movement and mindfulness throughout the Queen City and beyond.
Shirel Jones, “Incy Wincy Spider Ballet Adventure”
I became a ballerina at age 5 in Brooklyn, NY. I danced my way to CALArts from 2005 to 2009. A few years later, I began developing a dance program for kids in small Brooklyn community spaces, where I discovered a gift for tapping into children's creative potential through dance and song. In early 2015, I moved to Detroit and continued my program in community spaces. I also trained and work with Wolf Trap as a Teaching Artist who provides professional development for early childhood teachers.
In 2022, I began creating videos rooted in ballet to empower kids to lean into their creative potential and emotional intelligence. This exploration inspired my classroom work. Now, through my YouTube channel, I share these videos with a wider audience, bringing the joy of dance and the power of emotional expression to children everywhere. Additionally, I am working towards building concert series inspired by the video content I create, aiming to bring live, immersive dance experiences to families.
Clark Barclay, “Somewhere”
dropshift dance, Nadia Oussenko, “Lustre”
Lustre offers audiences a series of film vignettes rich with natural images and narratives that connect our existence to the natural world and its elements. Movement vocabulary borrows from tasks of preparation and physical ritual- corporeal manifestations explore internal darkness, thorough freedom/release, and a pursuit of refuge, comfort, and solace. This film is a collaboration between Andrea Cerniglia, Founder and Director of dropshift dance, and Nadio Oussenko of nadiaOcreative. Lustre premiered as a series of film vignettes during dropshift's evening-length dancework, "At Our Edges" at The Charnel House, Chicago.
A note from the filmmaker:
My artistry comes together in dance for the camera. I am fascinated with movement within the camera frame, and the relationship that the moving subject has with a moving camera. I am mesmerized by jump cuts in music videos, or the manner in which a fight scene in a movie is edited to heighten the impact of a punch. My movement and film research lies in trying to get closer to the actual sensation of movement initiated by the breath and resulting in twisting, reaching, falling, dropping, bouncing, swinging, and flying amidst a subtle array of stillness and gesture. Using the medium of film, I provide a visceral experience for the viewers, direct the viewers' attention and draw them into closer proximity and greater intimacy with the dancing body.