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I Dream of Wires is a documentary about the rise, fall and rebirth of the machine that shaped electronic music: the modular synthesizer. The film explores the synthesizer's remarkable history, revealing how innovators like Robert Moog, working at Columbia University's Computer Music Center, helped built the foundation for the machine. It shows how cheap foreign imports destroyed the synthesizer's reputation. And it tracks the phenomenal resurgence of high end modular synthesizers being used by a new generation of musicians, many of them the progenitors of the electronic dance music genre.
Inventors, musicians and enthusiasts are interviewed about their relationship with the modular synthesizer - for many, it's an all-consuming passion. Established musicians such as Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gary Numan, Morton Subotnick, Carl Craig and John Foxx show off their systems and explain why they opt to use this volatile but ultimately rewarding technology.
Meanwhile, a new generation of dance and electronica artists including Clark, James Holden and Factory Floor explain why they've embraced the sound and physicality of modular synthesizers. Innovative companies like Modcan and Doepfer, driven by a desire to revive modular synthesizers, discuss how they planted the seeds that have grown into a major cottage industry. What started out as a "vintage-revival scene" in the '90s has evolved into an underground phenomena, with users and aficionados craving ever more wild and innovative sounds and interfaces.
Today, the modular synthesizer is no longer an esoteric curiosity or even a mere music instrument - it is an essential tool for radical new sounds and a bona-fide subculture.
Step inside the halls of five NYC public schools and celebrate dance! Hosted by veteran TV journalist Paula Zahn, PS Dance! is the documentary that captures what happens when students add dance to their daily studies. The journey is one of imagination, curiosity, hard work and discipline. In these studios dance is for every child.
Thirty years after the making of A Swiss Yodelling Series, this film continues the investigation of the particular yodel style of the Muotatal, a small valley in the Swiss Pre-Alps. Shot in the early 1980s by ethnomusicologist-filmmaker Hugo Zemp, the earlier films presented the traditional local yodel (called "yootz") sang at work or whilst socializing in restaurants, in contrast to stage presentations of yodel choirs, federated in a national association, and singing under the direction of choir conductors.
Wondering how the situation had evolved in the second decade of the 21th century, he went back and found that Bernhard, the 7-year old boy who had sung with his parents and sisters, was now 37 years old. During his adolescence, like many teenagers, Bernhard was enthusiastic about American Rock and Country music (which he still performs), but when he watched the old films, he got the final urge to go back to the tradition which he had learned during his childhood in the family farmhouse. With five friends from his village, he founded a traditional yootzing group named "Natur Pur", searching to revive casual singing whilst meeting with friends over a drink. This new film shows performances in various situations - including singing with women and teaching at a workshop. Informal conversations between the singers, where humor is not absent, treat serious topics around tradition and change.
DVD (Color, Swiss-German with English subtitles) / 2015 / () / 71 minutes
Filmed over four years, Ballet Boys follows the victories, trials, and set-backs of three friends and rising Dutch dance stars: Lukas, Syvert, and Torgeir. They sacrifice a normal high school experience including parties and dating for the sake of ambition and a love of dance. Facing pressure from their parents, school teachers and ballet mentors, the boys prepare for potentially life-altering and career-making auditions at some of Europe's most prestigious ballet schools.
DVD (Norwegian with English Subtitles) / 2014 / () / 72 minutes
Elizabeth Streb and the STREB Extreme Action Company form a motley troupe of flyers and crashers. Propelled by Streb's edict that "anything too safe is not action," these daredevils challenge the assumptions of art, aging, injury, gender, and human possibility. Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity traces the evolution of Elizabeth Streb's movement philosophy as she pushes herself and her performers from the ground to the sky.A Revealing the passions behind the STREB dancers' bruises and broken noses, Born to Fly offers a breathtaking tale about the necessity of art, inspiring audiences hungry for a more tactile and fierce existence in the world.
What is life like for a dancer when they can no longer dance? Inspired by Merrill Ashley's departure from the New York City Ballet as an acclaimed principal dancer, this documentary, created by Ron Steinman and Eileen Douglas, captures the poignancy of this life turning point. After a struggle to find her next step, today Merrill Ashley travels around the world teaching Balanchine to dance companies which perform his works as once she did. This is the story of any dancer - or, in truth any one of us - who needs to find their way into a new life.
Secundaria quietly follows one high school class over a three-year period on its journey through Cuba's world famous National Ballet School. Our teenage dancers love to dance, but many of them must dance as their sole way out of poverty and the constraints- both visible and invisible- that shape life in Cuba.
DVD (Spanish with English Subtitles) / 2014 / () / 96 minutes
While the rural polyphonic songs of Georgia (Caucasus) are internationally appreciated and have become a national symbol, the urban instrumental music of the eastern part of the country is less well known. The Georgian duduki, a double-reed wind instrument of the oboe family, is known by different names in neighboring countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey.
In the 19th century Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, had a large multi-lingual population composed mainly of Georgians, Armenians, Azeri and Kurds, who practised and listened to duduki music. Traditional duduki music, performed by a soloist, a drone player, and a doli drummer who is also a singer, is derived from Middle Eastern styles and repertoires. Georgian musicians in the 20th century developed westernized local styles recalling the famous three-part polyphonic rural singing.
At a rehearsal for an upcoming concert, master musician Eldar Shoshitashvili and his students perform traditional oriental repertoires as well as modern westernized songs.
Practiced in Java for centuries, Jathilan is a folk dance that uses the power of music and dance to channel powerful and sometimes terrifying forces. Led by a spiritual guide and a whip-bearing ringleader, a group of dancers ride woven horses in rhythmic unison until they are entered by spirits. Once possessed they engage in a range of self-mortification behaviors until safely emerging from their altered state, left with no memory of the event and no lingering ill effects.
The film combines footage of a number of Jathilan performances with interviews with dancers, spiritual leaders, anthropologists, and enthusiasts. This extraordinary practice becomes more than just spectacle as Jathilan is contextualized within broader processes of Indonesian historical, political and social change and the viewer is provided a window into the subjective experiences of those who participate. Multiple interpretations of Jathilan's significance ultimately emerge, from an empirical proof of spiritual presence, to a strategy of community building, to a resistant expression of folk identity.
Birds of Passage presents a lyrical journey through the everyday lives of two young Uruguayan songwriters. Ernesto and Yisela have moved to the capital, leaving behind their respective hometowns on the borders of Brazil and Argentina. After many years of composing songs that reflect their origins, both decide to explore new horizons and each seeks to fulfill the dream of recording an album.
While Yisela struggles to reconcile the emerging possibilities of a career in Uruguay with her plans to move to Argentina, Ernesto confronts personal conflicts that threaten to sabotage his creative passion. The film fuses the arts of documentary film and music, interweaving the songs and stories of these two young composers. With striking verite cinematography and an unforgettable soundtrack, Birds of Passage explores the challenges of being a young artist and the art of searching, inside and outside oneself.
Director: Michele Hozer, Peter Raymont
Starring: Glenn Gould
An enigmatic musical poet - and the most documented classical musician of the last century - world-renowned pianist Glenn Gould continues to captivate international audiences twenty-six years after his untimely death. Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould humanizes the legend, weaving together an unprecedented array of unseen footage, private home recordings and diaries, as well as compelling interviews with Gould's most intimate friends and lovers - all exploring the incongruities between Gould's private reality and his wider image.
DVD (Region 1, Color, Black and White) / 2010 / () / 113 minutes
The documentary follows the challenges faced by the groundbreaking and controversial Vietnamese band Dai Lam Linh, while rehearsing and performing in their hometown of Hanoi. It shows how the band came together to create a unique form of popular music, which is both international in outlook and rooted in Vietnamese traditions and aesthetics. Followed by scandal at every turn for their experimental sound and their use of sexually explicit lyrics, the band have dared to flout taboos and fight for their creative freedom. Shunned by state-run organizations and disliked by the Vietnamese censors, the band were only able to record their debut album because of support from the Centre Culturel Francais de Hanoi. Dai Lam Linh's story of creative, political and financial struggle reveals what it is like to be a contemporary musician in a one-party state where cultural expression is tightly controlled.
Dai Lam Linh was established by the male composer, Dai, an ex-soldier who fought in the Second Indochina War (known as the "Vietnam War"), and two female singers, Lam and Linh. The film explores how Dai overcame the trauma of war by writing songs to honor the memory of the war dead and how the singers Lam and Linh embarked on an inner journey to discovery their extraordinary voices. With vivid footage of the band working in the city of Hanoi, the film documents the process of recording Dai Lam Linh's debut album in 2009 and features an album-launch concert in the prestigious Hanoi Opera House.
DVD (Color, With Study Guide) / 2010 / () / 56 minutes
In Ceriana, a village in West Liguria on the southern slopes of the Italian Alps descending to the Mediterranean coast, people love to sing. Among not less than five choirs, The Compagnia Sacco, founded in 1926, is the most committed to preserve the traditional drone polyphony. Different from Corsican and Sardinian polyphonies (but similar to East Georgian table songs), the local three-part singing is characterized by two solo voices and the drone of the choir.
The American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax made sound recordings in Ceriana in 1954. He invited The Compagnia Sacco in 1975 to the USA, as a prelude to the 1976 Bicentennial Celebration of Independence. This one-month tour in America was the starting point for its international reputation. However, unlike other choirs of the region, the members of The Compagnia Sacco do not sing under the direction of a conductor and do not limit themselves to giving concerts and producing CDs; they also enjoy very much singing together with friends at many local festivities. Thus, since its foundation The Compagnia Sacco draws its repertoire from the local tradition and still presents it to an international audience, and in return the members of the choir also continue to nurture and keep alive the village singing of today.
Rockin' the Wall is both an engaging history lesson about the Berlin Wall and an entertaining exploration of the power of rock music as a force for social change and liberation.
When the Berlin Wall went up in 1960, it became the worldwide symbol of communist oppression. While the Wall kept people in, it could not keep Western influences like rock music out. Through Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, rock music penetrated the Iron Curtain with messages of freedom and rebellion.
Rockin' the Wall presents the history of the Berlin Wall through the experiences of well-know rock musicians and those who lived behind the wall. Among the rock musicians featured are Robby Krieger (The Doors), Mark Stein and Vinny Martell (Vanilla Fudge), Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), David Paich (Toto), Jimmy Haslip (Yellowjackets), and the group Mother's Finest who played in East Berlin just weeks before the Wall fell.
People who lived behind the Iron Curtain in several countries describe what their lives were like and how rock music provided them an important lifeline and inspiration -- giving them hope and exposing the short-comings of the communist system.
The film includes historical footage of the famous speeches at the Berlin Wall by Presidents Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy, as well as interviews with former government officials and with European rocker Leslie Mandoki who recalls being visited by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss the power of music.
Features original music written for the film, as well as live music from several of the groups in the film.
Rockin' the Wall is ideal for classes in History, Political Science and Music.
Treasure of the Lisu takes us into the world of Ah-Cheng, a master musician and tradition bearer of the Lisu minority people in southwest China. Originating in eastern Tibet, the Lisu people now live among the mountainous Nu (Salween) River canyon, an area caught between the ancient and the modern world.
As a skilled craftsman, Ah-Cheng is the only person in his village who can still make the Chiben, an emblematic four-string lute, which alongside the knife and the crossbow, are the three most important objects to the Lisu People. The British Protestants brought Christianity to the Lisu at the beginning of the 1900s. The Chiben, used widely in traditional religious gatherings, was considered a threat to the newly introduced religion and as a result, was banned from the church system.
The Communist revolution from 1967 brought an end to the missionary work. When China exited the repressive cultural revolution era in 1980, Christianity, which had always been practiced by many Lisu people in secrecy, returned to the public and spread even further.
As China develops further into the modern world, TV, cell phones, and new ideologies gradually penetrate into the idyllic lives of these mountain people. Being one of the last remaining tradition bearers of the Lisu people in his village, Ah-Cheng holds a vital role in the survival of his ethnic culture. Even though he is illiterate, he is able to keep a clear mind regarding what is important to Lisu cultural identity. Practicing all the essential traditions of the Lisus while still accepting Christianity, Ah-Cheng embodies the human capacity to embrace differences in the face of changes. Through intimate access to the daily life of three generations of Lisu people in Ah-Cheng's family, this documentary shows, with heart-felt compassion and humor, the effect of modernization and its implication on ethnic traditions.
Treasure of the Lisu, observational in style with no scripted narration, paints an intimate portrait of one family of an ethnic minority living in modern day China. It presents a world rarely seen by Westerners, a world that seems so faraway yet we will find the unexpected similarities striking. Inspiring a deeper observation, the film provokes viewers to contemplate the value of simple living and traditions that are worth preserving.
With extraordinary footage shot during and after Bangladesh's most recent cyclone, this resource looks at the causes, impacts and management of tropical storms in an LEDC. It provides clear explanations of the physical causes of cyclones and the social, economic and environmental impacts are told through first hand accounts of those affected. It then provides examples of management strategies to reduce both the short and long term impacts of cyclones through better monitoring, prediction, disaster relief and poverty alleviation schemes.
This material is recommended by Cambridge International Examinations in the resource list for Cambridge International AS and A Level Geography 9696.