After decades as choreography and writing as my primary forms of creative expression, in recent years I’ve been drawn to exploring film. “Towards Ayasofya’s Wisdom” is a short film about Turkey, Islam and the Gulen Movement inspired by my trip as a guest of The Atlantic Institute’s Culture and Dialogue trip to Turkey in May of 2015. It premiered August 2016 at Blue Moves’ “Illuminated Beings; social justice dance, film and spoken word” presented by Sideshow Fringe Festival.
Towards Ayasofya’s Wisdom: Turkey, Islam and the Gulen Movement from Amanda Cantrell Roche on Vimeo.
My most recent film, which was a collaboration with Ashlyn Cianciolo, premiered March 11th, 2017 at Blue Moves’ “Muse” at the Looby Theater. “Refracting” was inspired by the prose of Carolyn German and included water color painting of collaborator Ben Griffith, and original score by Kyle Baker.
This short film gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Refracting”.
Outtakes, “Refracting” from Amanda Cantrell Roche on Vimeo.
For more photos from the film, click here.
“Conversations with Our Mother” premiered at Blue Moves’ Blue Terra, September 26 & 27, 2015
Blue Moves, the dance company I co-founded in 1989 and in which I am still active as a dancer and choreographer, chose “Earth” as our theme for the 2015 season. It was the fourth in a series of themes exploring the four elements: Water, Air, Fire and Earth. The culmination of a season considering each theme is a performance exploring how each element inspired choreography, from multiple voices within the company.
Rather than a live choreographic work, I chose this time to create a film which integrated choreography, nature footage, and interviews with diverse individuals. Pre-schoolers, environmentalists, farmers, healthy food advocates, residents of homeless camps and others were asked the same three, very simple questions:
If the earth could speak, what would she say?
What would you say to her?
What is one thing we can do for the earth?
You can view “Conversations with Our Mother” below.
“Between Two Worlds: Voices of Turkish Dissidents” is a short-term project I created for my Turkish friends from the Atlantic Institute, with recording help from Sean Siple of Inspiraseans.
Between two Worlds: Voices of Turkish Dissidents from Amanda Cantrell Roche on Vimeo.
