Barn Project ... Summer / Fall Calendar of Screenings

Video above is from the re-construction of What Practice Makes earlier this summer. The 4 dancers of Peter Stathas Dance did a beautiful job, learning the 14-minute dance in just a few days. Typically, I don't re-visit old dances, preferring to just start a new one. But this was a pleasure, and a chance to make it a bit more legible. We'll return to it later this fall, and present it in an open showing on November 6th, TBA. 

Summer/Fall Calendar of Screenings

July 14

Reeling: Dance on Screen  Edmonton, Canada         

Bronx Magic

July 29

Manifest International Dance Film Festival - Pondicherry, India

Inter Library Loan

August 3

Thomas Edison Film Festival - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Inter Library Loan

August 15

Black August Film Festival - Pasadena, California

Guardians of the Flame

August 20 

Bronzelens - Atlanta, Georgia

Guardians of the Flame

August 30

International ScreenDance Festival - Iowa City, Iowa

Blow Me Down

September 7

Film Fest Tucson - Tucson, Arizona

Cathy & Harry

September 28

New Jersey Film Festival - Rutgers, New Jersey

Cathy & Harry

September 30

Boston University - Boston, Massachusetts

Cathy & Harry

October 1

International Tour Film Festival - Citavecchia, Rome, Italy

Replica

October 3

Quinzena de Danca de Almada - Almada, Portugal

Blow Me Down

October 4

WildDogs International Screendance Festival - Calgary, Canada

Replica

October 10

Queens Underground International Black History Festival - Columbia, South Carolina

Guardians of the Flame

November 14

Moovy Tanzfimfestival - Koln, Germany

Inter Library Loan

Six very different films, screenings on 3 continents. For some of them, I even received a screening fee - not the US ones, you might guess.

Including the world premiere of Blow Me Down - finally!

So why don't I take more satisfaction?

You know me by now. The reward is in the making of the next project, not the laurels for the previous ones. And the next one doesn't start production till October. More to come.

Legacy Year?

Let's declare 2025 as Renzi Legacy Year, for several reasons. 

For one, Peter Stathas Dance has invited me to reconstruct an old dance for their company. Just how old you ask? Well, it premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in the fall of 1983, so that makes it over 40 years old. To a Beethoven string quartet, titled What Practice Makes,it's theoretically a dance about the rehearsal process, including lifts that don't get off the ground and a romance between 2 dancers. We workshopped it at Jacob's Pillow's Inside/Out stage earlier that year (see photo below). I've been reminiscing about our free rehearsal space at PS 1 in Queens before it was a museum, summer breezes wafting in through those huge windows. At the time we were a 4-person company: me, Peter, Melissa Matson and Teresa Duggan.  Should be interesting to re-visit, with all its flaws - maybe even an opportunity to clarify and improve on it with the help of PSD dancers whose parents were probably toddlers when it was first made! 

As another proof that legacy is on my mind, I catalogued my digital archive and donated it to the New York Public Library Dance Division. 

Live work: 1981-2022 (88 videos) 

Dance films 1981-2025 (69 videos) 

The library also took the 2-Volume MARTA RENZI NEWSLETTERS books made with Arthur Aviles in 2017, as well as (most of) the paper newsletters themselves.

Don't expect to be able to research them any time soon for that "Renzi Re-considered" paper you're writing. But now if I get hit by a truck my sons don't have to be responsible for pawing through old work. 

Speaking of the NYPL, I'm represented in the exhibition there called Room to Move: Dance Theater Workshop and Alternative Histories of Downtown Dance (see photo). Like Jacob's Pillow, DTW was a proving ground for me long ago. So so long ago.

The final marker of the 2025 Legacy Year is that I will soon dissolve And Dancers, Inc. the not-for-profit founded in 1981. Mind you, this decision is not motivated by Donald Trump's decimation of the NEA and various NGOs. Keeping a 501(c)3 just doesn't reflect the reality of my activity; in fact, it hasn't for a long time. It does mean I can't accept tax-deductible donations to my work anymore - so you'll just have to take me out to dinner.

As for what work is currently keeping me busy, the most recent series of videos are not dance films. Below is a video from a project related to my other long-running career: over 20 years working with the Nanuet Family Resource Center near where I live. I shot and edited 6 testimonies in Spanish from recent high school graduates to be shared with immigrant families who may not be adept at navigating our post-high school educational system. 

And in case this blog isn't updated next month - and assuming anyone reads it - here's news of upcoming screenings of my regular work: 

June 7 - Her Children Mourn and Replica at Glass Ceiling Breakers 

June 25 - Cathy & Harry at Rivertown Film 

As usual, there are plenty film festival submissions pending for a huge variety of past work: Blow Me Down, Replica, Her Magnum Opus, Cathy & Harry, Guardians of the Flame, In Search of Lost Time - plus 3 submitted to Mobile Dance Film Festival alone! 

Just to prove that legacy doesn't mean it's all over.

 Lately - and always, you say? - I've been wondering what it's all about. I submit a film to a faraway festival. I post a laurel on Facebook or here. It apparently screens, maybe even gets an award ... silence. 

Similarly with Her Magnum Opus which Consonance Dance & Music Festival recently awarded this "Diploma." But what's infinitely more satisfying, they also created a page with "reviews" from professionals and audience members which touched me.  Check out the page here, with a few excerpts below.

Movement here is more than just choreography - it is memory, language and emotion all at once. The way the film blends structured dance with unscripted, raw motion makes it feel deeply human, like watching someone's soul express itself in real time. It's not just about dance; it's about presence, about leaving something behind without saying a word.

               Andrew Kanivchenko

This film doesn't rush. It moves like a slow waltz, lingering in moments, letting glances and silences speak louder than words. Watching it felt like sitting in a quiet room filled with people who love each other but know they don't have much time left together.

                 Marta Torres Serrano

As long as we're here, there does happen to be a screening that I can attend! The Thomas Edison Film Festival, with whom I have a very long history, will show Inter Library Loan at the Hoboken Historical Museum on Saturday, March 8.  

Doors open at 6:30 for wine & pizza. At 7:00 a brief hello from me and the Executive Director Jane Steuerwald. $10.00 admission gets you in, and supports TEFF,

I hope you'll join me!

[NB: Like many others, I'm feeling a bit compromised by Facebook and the like. My happiest posting on that platform was probably the 365 days of "Outsides" - nature footage lasting about 30 seconds - for a year during the pandemic. Except for that, I never posted about my mood, or my grandchildren, using it more for self-promotion.  And then I realized: I have this harmless old method of self-promotion which the same 50 friends - actual ones - pay attention to - especially if I remind them with a MailChimp email. All this for free and without the meddling of Musk or Zuckerberg. So I'll milk it and see how it goes.]

Lots of screenings coming up in February, in the US and abroad.

REPLICA in a festival called Winter Dances, which has screenings in Finland and Sweden - and pays a screening fee! REPLICA is also screening in Macao (which I had to look up on a map) in the Rollout Dance Film Festival, online for a few weeks.

GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME screens at San Diego Black Film Festival in a Saturday morning "Historical" series.

INTER LIBRARY LOAN at the Greensboro Dance Film Festival in North Carolina, and in Reno, Nevada

where it's already won "Best of Fest" in the Third Coast Dance Film Fest.