Films
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In March 2020, when the California state prison system shut down all programming and visitation due to COVID-19, dancing abruptly ended. The work was rapidly revised, and the incarcerated dancers began sending out written choreographies from their bunks to the outside world. The resulting collection of deeply imagined choreographic pieces, written between March and May of 2020, became Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic.
It is an honor to dance these works into the “free” world. Highlighting six of the dances written/choreographed inside the prison by Brandon Alexander, Richie Martinez, Landon Reynolds and Terry Sakamoto Jr., the film presents the written work transformed into embodied dances at sites throughout the Santa Monica civic center area, drawing focus to the carcerality embedded in our public spaces.
With artistic direction by Suchi Branfman and cinematography by Tom Tsai, the dances are powerfully narrated by Marc Antoni Charcas, Ernst Fenelon Jr., Richie Martinez and Romarilyn Ralston (all formerly incarcerated movers and organizers) and choreographically interpreted by a group of brilliant choreographers: Bernard Brown, Jay Carlon, Irvin Gonzalez, Kenji Igus, Brianna Mims and Tom Tsai (all of whom have joined Branfman dancing inside the Norco prison). Each team was entrusted with bringing one of the written dances to action. Between them, they are steeped in hip hop, tap, breaking, performance art, quebradita, spoken word, butoh and contemporary dance forms. Released from prison during the summer of 2020, Richie Martinez joins the cast as he narrates and performs in “Richie’s Disappearing Acts” which he wrote while incarcerated at the Norco prison during the pandemic. And having been released in the spring of 2021, Terry Sakamoto Jr., who authored three of the dances, joins the project to share his experiences dancing on the inside, and now, outside of prison walls.
Manifest Film Festival, Pondicherry, India 2023
Dance Camera West Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA 2022
Best Documentary Short, Global Shorts, Los Angeles, CA 2021
Best Documentary Short, The Impact Docs, La Jolla, CA 2021
Runtime: 36:02
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Richie’s Disappearing Act was authored by Richie Martinez in March 2020 while incarcerated at the CRC Prison, inspired by the work of The Prison Renaissance Project inside San Quentin Prison.
In September 2020, dance artists who had previously shared their work inside the prison, were gathered to embody the written works that make up Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic, virtually sharing the resulting choreography with the public. (Hosted at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.)
Following the performance, Jay and Richie met for the first time, in a park across the street from the prison that Richie had been released from just four months prior, in July 2020.
Runtime: 13:04
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This thirty-five-minute film, directed by Suchi Branfman, with cinematographer/editor Tom Tsai, is a dance documentary about the making and performance of the choreographic work Angee's Journey, which premiered in 2019. Angee’s Journey retraces a mother’s pathway to visit her son, every month, during his fourteen-year incarceration; three trains, two buses, two cabs, and twelve hours each way.
Based on the story of Ernst Fenelon Jr., who was arrested on March 3rd, 1991, the same day that Rodney King was brutally beaten. They were both brought to the same LA Central Jail. After 14 1/2 years locked up, and 15 since getting out, what sustained him all those years has been his mother, Angee Fenelon. Angee's Journey, a 30-minute performance work, was choreographed and premiered live in 2019.
Through film of his mother’s stories, visiting room polaroid images, gesture and text, choreographer Suchi Branfman, in deep collaboration with Mr. Fenelon and the dancers, bears witness to one woman’s journey and one son being held together. Performed by Branfman and Fenelon, who took his mother’s journey together in 2018, a chorus of dancers (Cynthia Irobunda, Amy Oden, Anna Paz and Tom Tsai,) and including Angee (now in her eighties) and Ernst’s six-year old son.
Angee's Journey is a testament to the tens of thousands of women that persist in visiting their incarcerated daughters and sons, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, year in and year out.
Docs Without Borders Film Festival, Rehoboth Beach, DE 2022
Social Justice Film Festival, Seattle, WA 2021
Global Shorts, Los Angeles, CA 2021
Impact Docs, La Jolla CA 2021
Runtime: 32:39
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(a dance collaboration on the inside and outside)
During 2017, a group of dancers and incarcerated men spent every Friday afternoon dancing together. This performance is a result of that collaboration: honoring the experience and the movement created together and celebrating the ways that we are able to survive and find sustenance, whether inside or outside of the prison walls.
This film documents the creation and performance of SUSTAIN both inside prison walls and outside in the "free world."
Runtime: 17:43