@furious_beauty

Production Blog #11: Going Online to Offline - The “Furious Beauty” Screening Tour

Lately, I’ve been reading producer Ted Hope’s film blog Hope For Film, which challenged me to think about the new avenues opening up for filmmakers.  There are a lot of relevant concepts on that blog for artists besides filmmakers.  What happens when the old paradigm of creating and distributing art no longer works for us?  Our media industries are experiencing disruptive change.  A majority of Hollywood studio films currently gather close to seventy-five percent of their box office earnings overseas.  Many of us in the U.S. would rather save money, stay at home, and binge-watch content on Netflix and VOD.  We’re inundated with additional options in the forms of YouTube, video games, podcasts, and social media for our attention.  We have less time to enjoy the growing amount of media and we’re inclined to pay less for it.

The hip-hop dance community is also being disrupted by technology, especially online video.  Why attend a dance competition when you can watch the videos on YouTube?  Why should I pay for a choreographer to teach me in class if I can copy his moves by watching him online?  Taking this even further, why push myself creatively when it’s easier to repackage what I see other people doing in their concept videos?  These are all extreme hypothetical situations.  But I’m worried that the greater “noise” in our cultural landscape could make it harder for hip-hop dancers to be fully appreciated and valued.  To combat this, can we build our own platforms to showcase our work and build loyal audiences around them?

I’m exploring this question through this Summer 2013 screening tour for Furious Beauty.  Reflecting on our Santa Ana screening, I was surprised by how our audience wanted to continue interacting with us after the film ended.  Part of me believes the film opened them up to honest conversations about what’s going on with their lives.  Another part of me recognizes that the audience had just gained something they all shared – a communal experience through the film and now they wanted to prolong that sense of togetherness.  I’ve been thinking about how we could maximize this “relational” time for our future audiences. 

Taking a cue from Ted Hope’s blog, I would like the Furious Beauty Summer 2013 tour to be a catalyst in creating genuine connections between people.  First, let’s make each of the tour date events unique.  The live pre-shows and Q&As for each event date will be different.  These events can’t be reproduced, quantified, or fully experienced unless you’re there.  Even a video recording won’t capture the raw essence of the event.  I’m embracing an open approach to this tour, taking each event, learning what worked and what didn’t, and then continually iterating it into a new form for the next one.  Second, we’re going to encourage our audiences and our community to go from online to offline.  Maybe we first connect through online means by a simple invite to one of our events.  But once we meet face to face, let’s spend time together.  Learn a dance move.  Share our story.  Build a collaboration to create something new out of the experience of watching this film.  Let’s make that time after the screening an opportunity to create and plan for the future.  We’re extending the spirit of this film beyond its running time.  I hope what Furious Beauty has meant to me these past few years will reverberate into the lives of those encountering it.  And third and final, let’s think about our globalized culture and how we can promote intimacy between different groups.  Film is easily accessible to people from diverse backgrounds.  It can be a bridge.  A conversation-starter.  If what we create through this tour actually edifies lives, then I think we’ll be offering audiences something that is tangible and cherished.  We’re giving them an opportunity to be moved by art and then to dialogue about it in a personal, face-to-face way.  That can work anywhere in the world.

Maybe there is a new way to combine film and dance here.  I’m looking forward to exploring this and sharing more with you soon.

 - Calvin Leung

*To learn more about Furious Beauty and to connect with us, check out our website here.

Original Article here.

Production Blog #10: First Tour Screening for “Furious Beauty” - Santa Ana, California

About a month ago, I contemplated in my last production blog about taking our film Furious Beautyon tour across the U.S.  Since then, we’ve launched a tour as of May 25, 2013 with the first public screening in Santa Ana, California over Memorial Day Weekend.  The next big screening is in New York City on June 22nd in collaboration with Inhumanoids Crew and PMT Dance Studio near Union Square.  Although we’re at the very beginning of this tour, I’ve already been struck by unexpected discoveries that’ve made this journey worthwhile.

Putting together the Santa Ana screening was largely made possible by Dan Emmerie (aka DJ Audible), Saint City Session, Pastor Ric Seaver, and First Presbyterian Church in Santa Ana.  The monthly Saint City Session (every third Saturday of the month) was a great place to introduce our film and the story of Versa-Style Dance Company to another community of dancers.  The idea of combining a feature-length film screening with a live dance show is not commonplace in our circles, so we were working with a relatively blank canvas in launching this tour.  While Orange County is generally an hour and a half south of Los Angeles, that’s enough distance where Los Angeles and Orange County have evolved as distinct dance communities.  Using a film as a cultural bridge was on my mind.

Loading my car with the projector and media equipment hours before the screening started reminded me of producing hip-hop dance competitions under my previous company Keep It Live Productions.  There was that familiar thrill of embarking on something unchartered and unfamiliar.  I love that sensibility.  It calls to something deep within my spirit: A desire to breathe life into something that adds to a shared communal space.  The arts is that shared space.  I’m continually reminded about the power of storytelling in the arts, which is an immersive place to reflect and uncover some of our most engaging questions about our meaning and existence.  Dance as a temporal and visual medium often plays as a form of movement poetry that words cannot express.  And film bridges space and time through its very nature to take us places externally and internally that we may have never visited.

The live pre-show for this Santa Ana screening was a delight.  I felt that a 2-on-2 locking exhibition battle would be a great way to start the evening.  The Homeland Lockers (including Boogiewalker, Oni, Ryan, and Tsuyoshi) hooked the audience and it was my intention for the audience to experience locking in person, as there are fewer locking battles in today’s evolving street dance scene in Los Angeles.  I wanted to see these guys share their craft and artistry in a way that would be appreciated.  More so, it was eye-opening to hear them speak afterwards in a Q&A about how they approach locking.  For the person in the audience who was new to dancing, it put an accessible human stamp to what they saw.

And it set the stage for the film.  About ninety minutes later, I got to hear from our devoted audience members on their reactions.  It was always my goal to empower men and women to talk about emotions that keep them imprisoned.  Furious Beauty tracks several members of Versa-Style Dance Company on their shared journey of wrestling with emotional baggage from their pasts in order to create something beautiful in the present.  My favorite reactions were from a few audience members who mentioned they were encouraged to address their own personal struggles because the dancers onscreen were brave enough to share them.  Isn’t that a wonderful way to use film?  Somehow, when one person takes a risk by being vulnerable, it gives permission for others to speak up as well.  My mind wonders what new avenues could be opened up by envisioning film and dance as forms of personal healing.

After the screening, I didn’t expect so many people to stay around.  We kept the music going and a dance cypher broke out on the floor.  Other folks had personal conversations on the sidelines, getting to know each other more.  As I walked around the floor, I knew that this was where we were supposed to be.  As if in the bigger picture, all the right factors had come together to create this bubble of human interaction in the middle of downtown Santa Ana on a May evening.

Maybe it’s my scientist background that allows me to observe these proceedings in an experimental manner.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the upcoming tour dates for Furious Beauty evolve and to mull over what they will reveal.  Every tour date is an opportunity to uncover something new.

- Calvin Leung

*To learn more about Furious Beauty and to connect with us, check out our website here.

Original Article here.

Three more days until the start of the screening tour for my film Furious Beauty about Versa-Style Dance Company.  First stop is Santa Ana, California on May 25th!