Splice: 5 Dance Films — TAPS Spring Main Stage — will consist of five dance pieces for film, choreographed by TAPS Lecturers in Dance featuring Stanford Students. RSVP to have an access link sent to your inbox on opening night.

Pent | Choreographed by Katie Faulkner

Pent illuminates a particular state of bottlenecked energy and creative potential born out of this year of confinement. At turns brash, propulsive, lyrical, and funny, Pent aims to unearth the embodied experience of feeling more than you have room to express.

Trace Lines in the Provisional | Choreographed by Diane Frank

In memory of the souls lost to the pandemic. Mindful of the deep racial, social, and political suffering endured. In hope of coming together.

Trace Lines in the Provisional is not so much a dance as a danced visual tone-poem, supported by the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s rendering of a poignant new work for strings by composer Jarosław Kapuściński. The piece unfolds, marking the edges of personal space, the exertion against obstacles (of self, gravity, surfaces), and the extension towards imagined others. It explores the limits of reach in a pandemic moment when actual, physical connection is not yet possible. But out of that limitation, through layered sequencing of bodies, movement, and architecture, we can at least imaginatively connect, support, and extend ourselves toward one another. 

Riot of Spring | Choreographed by Aleta Hayes

A violet disruption. As dawn follows night, spring follows winter. Inspired by realized and imagined rites of spring, this intermedia Chocolate Heads project interpolates “liveness”, seeks communion and finds love. Rehearsed and filmed partially over Zoom and in landmark locations on the Stanford campus, Riot of Spring is a glowing testament to a compelling and irresistible collaboration.

For this piece, guest lecturer and director of photography Jamie Lyons, and Los Angeles-based musician and composer Harriet Brown join the band.

Distal Imprint | Choreographed by Alex Ketley 

Distal Imprint is a filmic poem created to honor my friendship with Bill Clark, an artist and death row inmate at San Quentin State Prison. Bill has been a deep source of inspiration to me given his relentless optimism in the face of his abhorrent situation, and I wanted to create a work that in a very small way gives flight to his monumental spirit. Bill, poet Carol Snow, and I worked together to create the text that serves as the backbone for this work. The choreography for the work was devised by me via Zoom, and the filming of the movement was explored by the Stanford cast spread across the world while in quarantine. Rounding out the production are composer Eli Nelson who created the music. Bill has on many occasions told me it is only his physical body that has lost its freedom, and that he maintains a clarity of purpose knowing his mind and spirit are always free. My hope is our work together on Distal Imprint, along with the cast, allows for another way he can be heard and felt within the greater world.

Carry on we Must | Choreographed by Ronnie Reddick

I decided to do this piece to express the way a lot of us were feeling last year during the lockdown. Being stuck inside and dealing with feelings of hopelessness, anxiousness, anger, monotony and anxiety. Along with the fight for anti-racism and equality, we are all still hoping for change and better understanding in the world — with continued longing for hope of a new day, and the celebration of resilience, and the human desire to be connected and regain a sense of normality. We have persevered and continue to move forward. The Dream of Martin Luther King is still alive…

The piece ends with a collective dance of joyfulness and celebration as we feel FABULOUS dancing again outside in the sun where we all desire to come together and begin to relive our lives…and CARRY ON WE MUST.