A short film by Tate Glover ’16 won second prize in the 2016 CalArts @ Dance Camera West Emerging Artists Competition, a contest honoring the most promising artists in the fields of dance and dance film.
Glover’s film, titled “Static Drift Abridged,” features three dancers — Timmy Broderick ’16, Marc Ferraro ’17 and Jennifer Seely ’16 — engaging with each other and with a bedroom emptied of everything except a bed and a chair. The piece, which Glover directed, choreographed, edited and filmed for a senior thesis, was inspired by Glover’s experiences with depression as a student at Kenyon.
“It is something that I found was pervasive among my community at Kenyon, but was something that was hardly ever openly talked about,” Glover said. “Depression still carries a stigma with it that makes it difficult to be open about. This piece was intended as a reflection of how relationships are affected by depression.”
Glover, a dance major from Boulder, Colorado, who worked for four years as a video intern in the Office of Communications, was exposed to the art of dance film by Assistant Professor of Dance Kora Radella and was further inspired by Boomerang, the dance company Radella co-founded with Matty Davis ’12. The Kenyon dance department also influenced Glover’s approach to choreography and emphasis on cutting unnecessary material.
“I learned that feedback from anybody and everybody is important — it lets you know if you are accomplishing what you intended to do,” said Glover, who is working on a couple of new dance films. “Nobody is going to see your work and think the exact same thing that you were thinking when you choreographed it, but you can at least make sure their interpretation is vaguely in the right place.”