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By Stacey Menchel Kussell
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Published on February 21, 2026
Publicity Stills from Dance on Camera Fest 2026
The Dance on Camera Festival delivered powerful films this year, of the works I saw,three pieces in particular demonstrated the diversity of expression in dance cinema.
RISA (2024)
Directors/Creators: Kate Weare & Jack Flame Sorokin
Choreographer: Kate Weare
Subject/Performer: Risa Steinberg
Cinematographer: Jack Flame Sorokin
Executive Producer: Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang
Production Company: Kate Weare Company
Sound Editor: Peter Bonaventure
Music: Lamento (After “When I Am Laid in Earth” from Dido and Aeneas) by Henry Purcell
Graphic Designer: Sadie Bowen
In photography or painting, an effective portrait allows the viewer to tap into the essence of its subject. In RISA, Kate Weare and Jack Flame Sorokin take portraiture to another level, capturing dancer and master teacher Risa Steinberg with awe and affection. Every detail — Steinberg's dress, her environment, and her posture — tells a tale.
RISA, filmed entirely in the dancer's apartment, cuts between short phrases of choreography and dialogue. In only twenty minutes, we are immersed into Steinberg's life and career as a young dancer with José Limón and Anna Sokolow. We learn of her passions and regrets.
The camera work is stunning and rich with detail. The textures of Risa's skin and eyes, the movement of her shirt, and moments of laughter and tears are juxtaposed with the objects in her living space, rough brick walls, and smooth statuary that bring the artist and her home vibrantly to life. The immense pleasure of this film is watching Steinberg, now in her seventies, dance throughout her apartment. Weare's choreography accentuates the veteran dancer's ebullient spirit and dynamic precision.
On a personal note, I had the privilege of meeting Steinberg and taking her class at Jacob's Pillow as part of a Limón workshop many years ago. I feel this film accurately distills her magic while serving as an effective piece of oral history. This film shares the large and small aspects of Steinberg's story, all while making the viewer feel like a cozy guest sitting next to this dancer, chatting with her on the couch.
Through Memory (2025/26)
Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor: Tobin Del Cuore
Executive Producer: 92NY Harkness Dance Center
Co-producer: Dawn DiPasquale
Featuring: Aszure Barton, Dante Puleio, Limón Dance Company, Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Joan Finkelstein
Score: Michael Wall
Additional Cinematography: Ryan Bronz, Jennifer Cox, Jackson McCoy, Max Skaff
Archival Photos: Robert A. Ripps, Carl Van Vechten, Phyllis Dearborn Massar
Trailer Consulting Producer: Collin Del Cuore
If RISA is a single portrait, Through Memory is a collection.
Produced by The 92nd Street Y, New York in honor of its 150th anniversary, and directed and edited by Tobin del Cuore, this film reflects the institution's vital impact on American dance.
Through Memory carries the viewer into the creation of a work by choreographer Aszure Barton, set on the Limón company. The new piece, eventually titled Join, is based on a never-performed choreography by José Limón's mentor and artistic director, Doris Humphrey. The Humphrey work has been entrusted to Barton to develop in her own distinctive style.
As the film explores the process of building Barton's Join, it also considers Limón's legacy and its continuation. Through interviews with Barton, several Limón dancers, Joan Finkelstein, executive director the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and Jody Arnhold, renowned dance advocate, educator, and chairman of the the board of the 92NY, as well as founder of Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) there, the viewer gets a multidimensional picture of how this new choreography continues the 92NY's groundbreaking dance tradition.
Del Cuore is a talented cinematographer who captures the personalities of the featured characters, both in and out of the studio, with poetry. A particularly moving moment features Johnson Guo dancing in rehearsal and, as Barton puts it, "stopping time" in a hypnotic solo.
The found footage and images of Limón, Humphrey, and the early days of the 92NY are seamlessly interwoven with voiceover and motion graphics. Present throughout the film is the theme of memory, and how commemorating the past, in life and dance, remains essential to crafting the next generation of work.
DuEls (2024)
Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Choreographers: Damien Jalet and Erna Ómarsdóttir
Production Company: Nagelhus Schia Productions (Norway)
Co-Producers: Iceland Dance Company, 4 ½ Fiction AS, and The Vigeland Museum
Dancers: Nagelhus Schia Productions and Iceland Dance Company
Featured Dancers (Original Performance): Damien Jalet and Erna Ómarsdóttir
Funding/Support: Bærum kommune, Viken fylkeskommune, Talent Norge, and Sparebankstiftelsen DNB
A haunted night at the museum, DuEls, a film directed by Jonas Åkerlund and choreographed by Damien Jalet and Erna Omarsdottir, explores an unusual aspect of the dance cinema genre as it moves into horror and suspense. Filmed on location at the Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Norway, the 58-minute piece is created as a set of chapters. Each scene presents characters that echo the tension and ferocity of the statues of the famed Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland.
Athletic and expressive, Jalet and Omarsdottir's choreography combines effortlessly with the museum's intense stone figures. The harsh sound effects and quick editing cuts give the film an added paranormal quality.
"DuEls"; Photo: Antero Hein
There is a particularly captivating scene about a third of the way into the film featuring a trio of women wearing dresses with torn white fabric. The editing here is gorgeous and rhythmic, showcasing quick cuts of the movement from different angles – a close-up on a hand followed by a wide shot from above – all while giving a sense of the room and the bright windows overhead.
Many other infernal scenes follow, including a violent, simulated birth scene featuring headless creatures, as well as a dancer covered in a fabric cocoon who seems to be battling a mythical beast to the death. The film aims to shock and scare while also responding to and interpreting the sculpture's fierce energy.
This piece premiered in 2020 at the Vigeland Museum, though the notes did not specify how it was presented. It would be interesting to see this film split into distinct mini-films as part of a walk-through installation. I wonder what effect that might have on a viewer.
