(2011) Collision Course (Film) Pillow Talk (7:24) October 21
This intriguing film short features three estranged characters, Nate Bond, Anthony Gongora, and Giselle Ruzany, dancers with body parts wrapped in large white bed pillows secured to body parts with packaging tape. Pillows become body appendages – an armor of protection, a shield, an obstacle to overcome, a source of comfort or battle, moments of despair and of possibility.

Dancers create an environment with associated memories, dreams, and nightmares – an odd yet delightful spectacle. This is real but more, it is surreal, at once bold and delicate, loving, driving and daring. “Pillows thrown, relationships caught! What dreams of love do nightmares have?” The performance site was at the Swedish Embassy along the Potomac River in Georgetown.  Dancers performed for 45 minutes inside and outside the Swedish Embassy.

The film takes place on the lawn outside the Swedish Embassy along the Potomac River in Georgetown, DC. The Company was invited to perform for the 2011 Dance USA Conference, on October 21, 2011. The Company received permission from the Embassy to create a film  at the grounds of the Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC prior to and during the Conference. The film was shown, along with other dance films, at Danzlenz, Habitat Center, New Delhi, India when MWDCCo was on tour to two cities in India.

Maida Withers, comment:
“The film (07:24), edited and designed by Anthony Gongora, was shot outdoors at the Embassy of Sweden (Swedish House) situated near the Potomac River in Georgetown, Washington, DC.  Maida directed the development of the choreography for the large lawn down to the Potomac River, enjoying the intrusion of pedestrians and bicyclists going to and from Georgetown.  A three-camera shoot by Catherine Featherstone, Ayo Okunseinde, Maida Withers, includes documentation of the site-specific performance at the Dance USA 20th Annual Conference and a site rehearsal to create the sequence and movement specifically for the film short.”
Maida Withers

Film production crew…..

Dance USA conference / reception.

Anthony Gongora

Gisella Ruzany, Anthony Gongora, Nate Bond
Dance Construction Company rehearsing

PERFORMANCE:
Maida Withers Dance Construction Company
Dance USA annual conference
Opening reception at the House of Sweden
Washington DC
June 16, 2010