MOVE!

African children move to the rhythm of two sticks banging on a plastic bucket. A group of little Georgian boys perform choreographed numbers in the streets. A couple dances the flamenco, appearing and disappearing from the windows of a white stone house. Two teenagers in tap shoes face one another in a church. A Native American does a traditional dance on a Los Angeles rooftop. A man painted white mirrors his movements to those of the city of Tokyo. All over the world, from Panama to Morocco, New Zealand and India, Fanny Jean-Noël trains her camera on people of radically different backgrounds and ways of life who are united by the same passion: dance. These people bring meaning to Nietzsche’s observation that “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” Move! was filmed over the course of the director’s travels around the globe since 2011. While it contains no voice-over narration, Jean-Noël deftly reveals the connections that tie her subjects together as she follows dance at the different stages of life and explores its diverse symbolic functions — from simple communication to complex ritual.