Photo by Holly Jo Schnaudigel
film. “I didn’t really have any expectations,” Luplau said. “I just wanted to do a good job. We had a fabulous family by the end of the two-and-a-half weeks of filming. You couldn’t ask for a better first experience filming. After the rehearsals and filming were over and Brown said he was most surprised by how compelling the dance was in the film. “To me,” Brown said, “Five Dances falls in the category of a poetic film. There’s a narrative but I wanted a film that was evocative as opposed to something you’re watching for a moment-to-moment narrative. When we got in the editing room, we first kinda rushed through the dance to get to the dialogue. But when we went back and just watched the dance, it was so compelling. That was the biggest surprise; how strong 42 BLEEP
the dance is. You don’t have to make excuses for it or cut it up or interrupt it with other things to make sure the audience stays interested.” With the rough cut of the film nearly completed and with investors and distributors already showing interest, Brown plans on being ready to submit the film to festivals starting in the fall and hopefully land a State-side distribution deal so wider audiences can see it. “Five Dances” proved to be an exercise in venturing into the unknown. For Brown that was making the film without having every second mapped out. For the dancers, it meant having to learn to be an artist in a new way, with words as well as with movement. But more than that, this film proved to be a project of personal growth for everyone involved. “I learned a lot about myself as a performer,” Ryan said. “A lot of my artistic ability was stretched. We