Breaking Form

Documentary feature “Breaking Form” explores the 40-year career of choreographer Jane Comfort, who emerged in the late 1970s with experimental fusions of text, rhythm, and movement that spoke to the social issues of her day.

West Coast Premiere — In an intimate and wide-ranging portrait of maverick choreographer Jane Comfort, “Breaking Form” explores a creatively rich chapter in New York City’s downtown dance scene and its legacy today. Beginning in the late 1970s and spanning her 40-year career, Comfort fused text, rhythm, and movement to craft experimental works of bold political satire and irreverent social commentary. Archival footage and contemporary interviews with Comfort, her collaborators, and dance historians shed light on an artist who defied expectations and engaged audiences through socially relevant, issue-oriented movement theater.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with choreographer Jane Comfort and director Alexandra Nikolchev, moderated by Margaret Jenkins.

Trailer:

Venue Accessibility: Brava Theater is located at 2781 24th Street. Curb cuts for the sidewalk to the Brava Theater Center are located on the corner of York and 24th Street. The entrance of the theater is on the ground floor and there is an elevator to seating in the upper level of the theater.

Featured Short: Table for one, please.

Director/Choreographer: Samantha Shay
(Germany & United Kingdom, 2024) 14:10 minutes
Genre: Contemporary

Text and movement mingle in the dance theatre short “Table for one, please,” which explores memory and grief through a series of dramatic vignettes.

Inspired by the writing of Anton Chekhov, “Table for one, please” explores the social awkwardness of grief and the living presence of memory at the blurred frontiers of past and future. Emerging out of rehearsals for an original dance theatre piece by director Samantha Shay, current and former artists of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and the Grotowski Institute-based physical theater company Teatr ZAR reflect on individual and collective histories to invoke cross-generational tensions in content, form, and context. Through poignant monologues and charged encounters, text and movement externalize internal states with a visceral directness that invites, exposes, and implicates the viewer.