Dance Professor Daniel Gwirtzman’s Film Screens in Italy

By Daniel Gwirtzman, November 13, 2024

Charged, a dance film directed, choreographed, and edited by School of Music, Theatre, and Dance professor Daniel Gwirtzman, screened Sunday, November 10 at the 10th Cinedanza International Screendance Festival in Modena, Italy.

The other six films shown in Sunday evening’s program were from Greece, Uganda, Canada, Israel, Brazil and Italy. This is the 13th festival to have included the film, eight of them international, after premiering in May 2021 by the commissioning Texas-based Flatlands Dance Theatre.

Poster of Charged with Laurels

Charged showcases an over-caffeinated Everywoman in her kitchen on the brink of disaster. A portrait of a driven, detailed woman who manages an array of tasks, alternating between the discipline of accomplishing and the daydream of departure. Humor, grit, exhaustion, frustration, and liberation emerge as themes as the soloist pursues unexpected and surprising actions within an expected and unsurprising setting.

Poster for Charged featuring a dancer wearing a yellow suit.

The film was commissioned by the Texas-based Flatlands Dance Theatre and made its premiere during the Solo Series, a week-long screening (May 2021). It subsequently screened to live audiences at the DanceBARN ScreenDANCE Festival in Battle Lake, Minnesota (July 2021); TDP’21, Tipperary Dance Platform’s international dance festival, which “brings the best of dance from the world” to Tipperary, Ireland (October, 2021); Thessaloniki Cinedance International, Thessaloniki, Greece (September 2022); Third Coast Dance Festival, Reno, Nevada (February 2023); Opine Dance Film Festival, presented by the Bryn Mawr Film Institute at Bryn Mawr College (March 2023), and the American Dance Festival’s Movies by Movers Festival during ADF’s 90th Anniversary Season at Duke University (June 2023). In 2024 the film has screened at PlatArtístic Spring Dance Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain (April 2024); FilmFest Rogue Dance, Online (April/May 2024): DanzaTTack Festival. Tenerife, Canary Islands (May 2024). CLICK TO ENJOY THE PREVIEW