Winner of Best Documentary at both the San Francisco Dance Film Festival and the Dance Camera West Festival in Los Angeles, the spectacular dance film NEVER STAND STILL will have its theatrical premiere on May 18th at New York's Quad Cinema, to be followed by openings in Los Angeles and additional cities.
Directed by veteran documentary filmmaker Ron Honsa, the beautifully crafted NEVER STAND STILL reveals the passion, discipline, and daring of those who choose a life in dance. Performances filmed live at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, interviews with extraordinary artists, rare archival footage, and behind the scenes insights bring dance to life, as NEVER STAND STILL visits the iconic international nexus for dance: Jacob's Pillow.
Founded in the 1930s by visionary dance pioneer
Ted Shawn on a farm in the Berkshires, today the Pillow is an idyllic mecca for artists and audiences from around the world, a place where dance in all its forms - from ballet to jazz to contemporary - is studied, created, performed and celebrated.
Intimate and candid conversations offer personal portraits of leading choreographers and dancers: Suzanne Farrell, one of the greatest ballerinas in the world, recalls some of her first performances; Tony Award-winner
Bill Irwin marvels at the physical humor of
Charlie Chaplin and
Buster Keaton; celebrated dancer
Rasta Thomas discusses his "bad boy" image; former Ballet Russe de
Monte Carlo star
Frederic Franklin recalls the early days of the Pillow, where Joseph Pilates taught his now ubiquitous body-strengthening methods;
Mark Morris talks about his love of music; and Merce Cunningham, in one of his last interviews, describes why dance "is not for the timid."
Also interviewed are
Paul Taylor,
Judith Jamison, and a new generation of artists and companies includingChunky Move, Shantala Shivalingappa and Stockholm 59° North, who appear in performance and off-stage during their creative workdays.
The release of NEVER STAND STILL coincides with the 80th Anniversary Season of America's longest running dance festival. This collection of converted barns and farmhouses from the 1700s in the Berkshires of Massachusetts evolved into "the dance center of the nation" (
The New York Times) - a destination for artists and audiences from all over the world. Like Wim Wenders's
Pina, NEVER STAND STILL immerses us in the lives of extraordinary artists and the power of dance.
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