Black Dance Film Studies (BDFS) is an open studio, movement lab, and archive, anchored by dance classes with choreographer Celia Benvenutti and movement documenting by bree gant. BDFS explores visual and choreographic composition as critical praxis, and is particularly concerned with blackness as theory, culture, and identity. The photographs below are a selection from bree’s dance documenting archives.
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BDFS partners with the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification, is sponsored by Allied Media Projects, and has received funding from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Kresge Arts in Detroit.
Please considered making a tax deductible donation to support community dance classes and travel research.
Institute for Dunham Technique Certification Conference 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022
The Gathering: Choreographing Black Space was a residency produced by Harge Dance Stories and Daring Dances, in collaboration with Skeleton Architecture and 10 dance artists from Detroit, including myself. The participating artists worked together to design our own residency, community workshop, and public performance. I participated, documented the week-long event, and co-facilitated The Gathering Collective of Detroit dancers for a year following the happening.
Silent Protest, 2017, was a performance intervention directed and organized by artist scholar Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin at the Jean Baptiste Point du Sable bust in Chicago, IL on the 100th anniversary of the Silent Protest Parade in New York City. The performance featured dancers from the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification.
Aud’s contemporary class with Collective Sweat Detroit.
Penny Godboldo’s 2018 Winter Dunham Technique Intensive
Internationally acclaimed Detroit musician Chinelo Amen-Ra during drum lessons in Havana, Cuba.
Kiko y Yemaya, 2016. Kiko, our host and guide in Havana, diving off El Malecon.
Celia Benvenutti in 35mm on her research trip to her father’s home in Guayama, PR.
Jennifer Harge rehearsing her 2019 solo performance FLY | DROWN.
her(stor)ies, 2017, directed, choreographed, and performed by Harge Dance Stories