Phoenix Dance

Phoenix Dance – one of my film projects – called me loudly.  And after the initial fiery inspiration, I started to resist the calling. It was going to be just too hard to find the money for it, and the logistics of it... But as always it is the people I am portraying that pull me in, and eventually, I can’t refuse. I see something so beautiful, so unique, and I know I must share; everyone deserves to know this exquisite beauty and inspiration that I experience. Of course then comes the task of "translating" this vision into cinema, because it is not about the outer images and facts but about the inner experience. I must now transform so called reality into cinematic language that is capable of evoking deeper truth about our human existence. This essence is transmissible in live performance of music, dance, theater; we all have felt it. And in film, too, it is possible, with its many its layers of image, sound, word, rhythm (editing), light, music, narrative arc. For me the trick is always how to not go for cheap manipulation and artificially inducing tears, but rather leave space for the viewer to touch upon their own feelings and story. For me making cinema it is truly about Sculpting In Time – as the late Andrei Tarkovsky calls it. From my years as professional dancer and theater artist, I know how choreography is about sculpting, just like is the art of cinema.

Imagine a dancer
The body his instrument, his legs and feet so essential. 
What if he is missing one leg? Is dancing still possible? 
Could he dance with one leg? 
Homer does just that – he dances with one leg. 
No crutches, nothing. 
And he makes it look like the most beautiful thing on earth. 
He is flying, soaring....

Exactly nineteen years ago – in October 2002  when I see Homer perform with Andrea Flores at an AXIS Dance Company performance in Oakland, I have tears streaming down my face, and as I am watching I urgently ask myself how I could help to bring this utterly inspiring effort to the world. Realizing I am a filmmaker, I approach Homer right afterwards, to see if he is interested in a film about himself and this particular pas de deux which in my mind, speaks about the essence of the human experience. I know nobody will be able to imagine a dancer on one leg like Homer without seeing it. He says yes, and takes me on a journey, too. Then I meet up with renowned choreographer Alonzo King. He consents to my enthusiastic yet simple and unsentimental vision for Phoenix Dance, and his voice becomes an important element of the film which I am conceiving as a poem.

Beginning of 2006, the short documentary premieres at New York’s Lincoln Center, and is on the road to becoming my most “successful” film. It is shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination, receives hundreds of screenings in film festivals, theaters, conferences, universities all over the world, numerous prestigious awards and over three hundred fabulous reviews and write-ups for many years. It is thrilling, and overwhelming.

In 2010, Dorothy Baker writes a very moving and deeply perceptive review of Phoenix Dance, called Dancing through Fire, and I thank her in an e-mail. Her review is speaking in a voice that expresses exactly what I have been trying to convey on the deeper levels. How it is spirit that moves our bodies. Then in 2017, out of the blue, Dorothy resends her review telling me how much the film and my thank-you note has consoled her back in 2010, when a few months later, her husband dies suddenly at age 56. Now, I am doubly touched, my own husband died the year before in 2016. And a big circle is woven. From 2002 to 2017, fifteen years later. The film is truly timeless.

Here is the beginning of Dorothy's beautiful longer review: “This is a stunning, moving film.  There are no wasted images, no extraneous words.  Each frame, each spoken phrase has a powerful impact.  Yet the real beauty of it is that its message and tone feels accessible and uplifting throughout.  Karina Epperlein’s award winning documentary Phoenix Dance, is a visual and spiritual journey, a reconnection with a childlike curiosity and trust.”

To stream Phoenix Dance for home video:

https://karinafilms.vhx.tv

Comments

  1. "spirit that moves our bodies"-When I read those words from you, something moves in me and I know the truth of your words. I am deeply touched by your account of how Phoenix Dance came to be. Reading the beginning of Dorothy's review of it brings the memory of your film to mind and heart. It is a work of great beauty: open, elegant and profound Those 2 stills from the film are exquisite: the two of them deeply absorbed in their creation, intertwined and apart.

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  2. Yes, you are right: Spirit moves our Bodies, for me that is a lived truth and the main ingredient of Phoenix Dance, why i was so called to make it, and making it the the way i did.

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