DANCING AND DINNER

Available now from "No Festival Required":

Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters--You probably shouldn't miss this excellent, absorbing performance documentary from Kino Lorber. The focus is on D-Man in the Waters, choreographed by Bill T. Jones for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in New York in 1989, and regarded as a masterpiece of modern dance. Directed by Rosalynde LeBlanc in collaboration with the veteran documentary cameraman Tom Hurwitz, the film skillfully traces both the original production of the piece--a desperately leaping, strenuous response to the AIDS crisis--and a new production of it at Loyola Marymount. This new mounting is directed by LeBlanc, a former Jones/Zane Company member, with a cast of kids who don't remember the epidemic.

Talking heads, including Jones, from back in the day narrate the evolution of the Jones/Zane Company and of D-Man; at the same time we see LeBlanc struggling to get her young dancers of the social media age to generate some of the sense of anger and urgency that informed the original. Jones visits some rehearsals and gently offers input which LeBlanc and her cast deferentially accept.

The dancing we see, from both productions, is soulful and beautiful, but the people and their stories are probably even more engaging. The tone of the film is quietly joyous; still it's sobering to note that the days of the AIDS plague at its rampaging heights, which seemed so unforgettable at the time, are gradually being forgotten.

Link to it here.

On VOD...

An Exquisite Meal--A trendy Chicago couple invite several of their trendy friends over for dinner. At least two strangers crash the party. One's an electrician whose working-class status makes everybody uncomfortable; the other is an academic with a foreign accent, so he's treated like a rock star. 

Despite the host's elaborate promises of the culinary delights to come, dinner is maddeningly delayed. While they wait, the guests discuss absurdly trendy projects like yoga in war zones and artificial insemination not for fertility reasons but to allow conception with no "connotation" of rape. Before long, violence and sexual treachery are afoot.

Written and directed by Robert Bruce Carter, this indie satire on class has attractive actors and some intriguing ideas, but it doesn't come together satisfyingly. It's only about an hour long, but by the end you may be as impatient for dinner as the guests.