The Bell House is moving into filming on DEEP in two weeks and everything seems to be coming together. DEEP focuses on one woman’s experience of baptism. As she’s plunged into the baptismal tank, she enters an underwater world of death and renewal. As she struggles to come to a spiritual understanding of who she is and what her purpose might be in the real world, images of her life overpower her and bring her to the edge of complete surrender only to find that in letting go, she can now live more fully.

Performing her own choreography, Katy Eurich finds it challenging to navigate the difference between choreographing for a live work and choreographing for camera. "You see the movie in your head and you think the possibilities are endless, but then you realize that, while the film/video medium is vast, it does have limits, the main one being financial. When you don’t have the luxury of deep pockets, the reality of what you can do influences your artistic process. For example, with no money for a hi-end camera crew, the product output may be treated to create intention between the type of film necessary to use and the look and feel of the final dancefilm." Having no choice sometimes opens up more choices than you thought you had and forces you to go places artistically that you wouldn’t have explored if you hadn’t had to consider them in the first place.

All that said, DEEP, is an exciting step for The Bell House in that we are moving into territory that is new and untapped. The dancefilm medium is pervasive but few of have their hands in both meaningful messages and artistic excellence. It is a direction we find ourselves pleased to be headed.

We’ve wrapped filming on Paper Cuts, a dancefilm choreographed by Linda Caldwell and directed by Rachel Bruce Johnson. In Paper Cuts, a world of shredded paper surrounds the dancer as she cuts through the space with joy and wonder. Her ecstasy turns to greed as she consumes, destroys, and leaves her delible footprint on the delicate paper world. After her gluttony is fulfilled she finds herself in a static, torn space destroyed by her activity. Her sorrow cuts through her final gestures.

Now that we’re in post, I realize how special this medium really is. There are so many magical moments in Sarah Newton’s performance of the role and together with Keith Fleming’s original sound score of manipulated paper sounds is truly a provocative experience. Paper Cuts has already been submitted to several film festivals even as we wrap up. It will be exciting to see how it is perceived and what kind of thoughts is provokes about consumption and the consequences of greed.