The Fort Collins nonprofit performance group LuneAseas launched the festival in 2020 to support artists with a socially distanced event, and organizers found that the collaborations and interplay among art forms created strong bonds. This year’s event was created in partnership with the Lyric Cinema, the Bohemian Foundation and the Fort Fund.
Before the screenings begin, there will be a music jam and loose dance performances. The first hour of films will include classics such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid; excerpts from Metropolis, a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama; and two Georges Méliès works: The Mermaid and The Haunted House. While they're being projected, first LuneAseas with Trytonez and then Adam Bodine will accompany the films with music, and dancers will perform.
The second half will showcase twelve silent films made over the past year by artists from around the country.
It’s “like a music video, but instead of the video being driven by the music, the composition of the music is driven by the movement in the video,” LuneAseas explains in a statement.
Independent Silent Film Festival 2.0 is hosted by LuneAseas, a nonprofit performance incubation team.
Walker Mondak
The Independent Silent Film Festival was “inspired by the movement and physical theater of silent films and how it could affect our own movement as a dance company,” says Leah Casper, executive artistic director of LuneAseas. “We also, as musicians, wanted to see what would happen when we took old silent films and put modern scores to them — how that would inspire our own musical compositions.”
That curiosity coincided with a need to employ artists last year. LuneAseas began in 2013 as a dance collaboration that soon incorporated music and immersive art. The group created performance mazes that integrated stories and plot lines. Most of those events were shut down by the pandemic.
“We had to rethink our season and how we were able to present it,” Casper continues. She put out a call to the artistic community for submissions and heard back from artists and dance companies from across the country.
This year’s event includes some of those same participants with new collaborative material. The roster includes Denver acts such as Evolving Doors Dance, In the Wings Aerial Dance, Ascential Dance Theater and Life/Art Dance Ensemble; national performers such as Andie Mock and Jordan Kriston (formerly of Pilobolus); and Northern Colorado artists such as Natalie Scarlet, Emma Kimball, Jeremy Woodard, Front Range Contemporary Ballet Company and Dance Express.
After receiving video content from the performers, LuneAseas passed the material along to musicians such as Dave Heumann (of Arbouretum), Cipriano Ortega, High Fiction and Julianne Mason, who composed instrumental scores.
While many of LuneAseas’ performances invite audience participation, Casper explains that for this show, viewers will take a seat and bear witness.
“It’s a way for us to relax and enjoy the time that we have with the audience...and the spirit of collaboration,” she says.
The Independent Silent Film Festival 2.0 takes place at 7 p.m. on Friday, August 27, at the Lyric Cinema, 1209 North College Street in Fort Collins. Tickets and more information are available on the Lune Aseas website. For those who can’t attend in person, the performances will be available online August 28 through September 28.
