FOOTFALLS

FOOTFALLS – DANCE FILM 2010 – 2011

Artistic Director and Choreographer – Caroline Lamb

Cinematographer and Editor – Luke Jacobs 

Poem – mountains of man – Patrick Jones

Footfalls is a dance film from Striking Attitudes celebrating the older dancer. 

Shot throughout the landscape of Wales, it features 53 older dancers from across Wales; professional dancers (aged 46-63) and a ‘chorus’ of community dancers (aged 50 to 93). The community dancers were Cofio from Rhondda Cynon Taff, Dawns i Bawb from Caernarfon, Tan Dance from Swansea, Rhuddem from Ceredigion and Striking Attitudes from Cardiff.

Footfalls tells of the paths we choose as we journey through life, of our struggle with the elemental forces of the natural world and with our own internal passions, of our fear of the dangers of this earth and our delight in its extraordinary beauty.

 We are mortal, earthly beings, fragile flesh challenged by the vastness of the universe and our insignificant place within it.  As travellers through this world, our existence on earth is but a brief breath in the life of a planet that has survived for aeons. 

We travel into the unknown. Sometimes the path ahead is hard, the journey so treacherous we fail and fall along the way. Sometimes the road is smooth and full of delights and sometimes we must part at the crossroads.

Footfalls is exciting because it’s about courage, it’s about uncertainty, it’s about daring. Every one of its older dancers, professional and community, has made the choice to keep dancing when many of their contemporaries have, by this stage, chosen to give up and take other paths.

Striking Attitude’s Artistic Director, Caroline Lamb describes working with older dancers:

 “As a choreographer, it is a joy to work with older performers. There is a depth to their performance and a potent physical energy, despite having less actual stamina and flexibility. Each dancer offers a unique palette of skills and an assured personality that gives their work a particular colour and flavour. It informs the choreography and gives each movement meaning and adds a further layer to it.”

Filming of Footfalls took a year to film to capture the seasons and filmed in cold, rain, sunshine, wind and snow. 

 ‘The company’s work with older dancers is creating a unique, and beautifully realised body of work which speaks dynamically both to audiences in Wales, and to the wider dance community. The company’s most recent project, Footfalls, was an entrancing piece of work.’ 

John McGrath – Artistic Director National Theatre Wales

‘Astonishing achievement. Stunningly beautiful. Connotative, beguiling, mythic and totally satisfying.’ 

Wyndham Price – Film Director – Spinning Heads films

I was extremely impressed with the quality of your film ‘Footfalls’, which was shown in one of our cinemas prior to the programmed screening of ‘Pina’.

 Andy Eagle -Director – Chapter Arts Centre

FUNDING – ARTS COUNCIL WALES, GWANWYN, LEGAL AND GENERAL