DANCE
MOVING CITIES: EXPLORING METROPOLISES THROUGH THE LANGUAGE OF DANCE
BY LAURA OBIOLS
4 – La Revista - Spring / Summer 2018
M
oving Cities is a multi awarded growing
the postcard past portrayed, but cities that are
“I had been making short music videos and
project of film shorts that take a radical
alive, today. “We bring together the best dance
advertising for a long time but in 2010 I was
new approach to dance in public spaces.
institutions local to a particular city, from world-
commissioned by East London Dance and Westfield
The British Spanish Society talks to Jevan
class ballet to street dancers, from physical theatre
to produce a dance film on the emerging landscape
Chowdhury, the brain behind the project. Working
to contemporary dance, and set them against the
of East London. The Olympics was two years away
with the natural hustle and bustle in cities around
urban landscape. Our goal is to build a canon of
and the East London was dramatically changing.
the world, he has paired together dance, music
contemporary art photographs and films that
The brief was to work with local dancers of all
and film into one striking piece of art.
celebrate the cities”, Chowdhury explains.
genres and to capture them against a changing
Just landed from San Francisco, he opens the doors
Since its inception in 2014, the Moving Cities project
of his lovely studio in West London, and apologizes
has won international acclaim described as a fusion
for a pile of mail at his desk “I literally just landed”,
of cinema, art and dance. Eight Moving Cities film
he says. We meet some of the team; they are hard
productions have happened to date, capturing 21
at working on their projects in San Francisco, Tel
cities into still photography media exhibitions,
Aviv and Dallas, the studio is a hive of activity in
including London, Paris, Barcelona, Prague,
“We are currently working with San Francisco Travel
the middle of the quiet leafy Chiswick.
Athens, Melbourne, Dallas, Munich, Yerevan,
and SF Ballet to develop Moving SF while in Israel
Leeds, Brussels, Bucharest and Christchurch,
we are working with Batsheva to produce Moving
New Zealand.
Tel Aviv”, he tells when asked about future projects.
Moving Cities is an artistic comment on cities: the people, the transience, the culture, etc. Not
landscape, like a visual census. The intersection of film, dance and city was exciting. I was also reading Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and the collision of dance and infrastructure was illuminating. Moving Cities was born”, he says.