Into Sunlight

This documentary brings together a choreographer, her dancers, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the nonfiction work that inspired her bold experiment.  David Maraniss’s They Marched into Sunlight is a chronicle of the Vietnam era that explores the effects of war on those in battle and those at home. The year is 1967, the same year of student protests on the University of Wisconsin campus. The challenge for choreographer Robin Becker is to combine these events into a full-scale contemporary dance. The director blends rehearsal and performance footage with interviews with key figures from the book and the author himself.  Amazingly, the dancers absorb the complex material and make a stunning contribution to the multilayered work.

Screening with:

Jonah
Andrew Michael Ellis, USA, 2016, 10m
World Premiere
An interview with a former African American slave accompanies a powerful dance vignette of an urban man in extremis. The juxtaposition of past and present raises questions about inherited trauma and the possibility of regeneration.