The Contemporary Film Series: BURDEN HALVED (2020)

Film Viewing:  September 7-10, 2020 on Contemporary at Blue Star‘s YouTube channel and Ruby City’s AppleTV app

Panel Discussion:  Thursday, September 10, 2020 | 6:00pm on Facebook Live

Free to the public

Contemporary at Blue Star and Ruby City present a two-part virtual event for their continuing collaboration, the Contemporary Film Series. For this edition, an eight-minute film produced by sculptor Lara Schnitger and director/choreographer Kitty McNamee titled, BURDEN HALVED (2020) will be shown concurrently on the organizations’ Facebook Live and Instagram TV streams via @BlueStarArt and @RubyCity as well as on Ruby City’s AppleTV app. This event marks the film’s premiere in a visual art institution context and features direction and choreography by McNamee and wearable sculptures created by Schnitger, a Linda Pace Foundation Collection artist. Accompanying music is composed and played by Flea. The film traces the journey of four dancers struggling to manage their individual burdens and finding solace when their isolated experiences converge and their burdens are shared, halved, and eventually removed.

The four-day online film viewing will conclude with a panel discussion on Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 6pm with the artist and director/choreographer moderated by Ruby City Director, Elyse A. Gonzales and Contemporary at Blue Star Curator and Exhibition Manager Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray. To participate in the free panel discussion, visit the Facebook event page, tune into @bluestarart’s Facebook Live event, or Ruby City’s AppleTV app.

About the Artists

Lara Schnitger (b.1969 in Haarlem, Netherlands) is a Dutch–American sculptor and painter, living and working in Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Schnitger studied at the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) from 1987 to 1991 and spent a year on a residency at the Kitakyushu Centre for Contemporary Art in southern Japan.

Schnitger works in knitted and sewn textile sculptures, videos and collages, and has produced a book about art created from mundane materials such as fabric, titled Lara Schnitger: Fragile Kingdom. ^[1]

Schnitger’s work has been shown internationally at galleries and museums such as Magasin 3 in Stockholm, the Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Kunstwerke in Berlin, the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, The Power Plant in Toronto, and the Royal Academy in London. She participated in the Liverpool Biennial in 1999 and the Shanghai Biennial in 2002.

Kitty McNamee is an artist, a creator and most importantly a collaborator. Her early years in LA were spent honing her craft as Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Co., a consistently prolific and creative collective that redefined dance in Los Angeles. Her unique approach to direction and choreography was declared by Dance Magazine to possess “an outsize talent for that most elusive gift, originality.”

McNamee has collaborated extensively with performing arts organizations as well as large-scale businesses. At the LA Philharmonic she has developed new productions of Rite of Spring, Firebird, Bolero, Esa Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing, and more. Ballets include RIFT commissioned by Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and the Kennedy Center, and the creation of the new ballets Traces and Transit for National Choreographer’s Initiative. Her work for some of the country’s largest Opera companies includes Romeo et Juliette, La Traviata, La Rondine, and Tales of Hoffman.  Theater credits include Secret Cinema’s groundbreaking live performances with Laura Marling in London, the World Premiere of Colony Collapse (commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Midsummer Night’s Dream (LA Phil/Disney Hall), and Sondheim’s 75th (Hollywood Bowl). McNamee finds shifting from high art settings to the demands of pop culture to be invigorating consequently, she has worked with Target, Adobe MAX, Novartis, Mercedes Benz, Grey Ant and Uniglo.

ABOUT THE FILM

BURDEN HALVED (2020)

DIRECTOR + CHOREOGRAPHER

Kitty McNamee

ART DIRECTION + SCULPTURES

Lara Schnitger

SOLO BASS EXTRAPOLATION

Flea

DANCERS

Raymond Ejiofor

Reshma Gajjar

Derek Schiesel

Zak Ryan Schlegel

EDITOR

Lori Lovoy-Goran

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Pavel Yatsenko

SOUND DESIGN

Adam King

PRODUCERS

Kitty McNamee

Lara Schnitger

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Julie Schmid

FIRST ASSISTANT CAMERA

Majd Mazin

STILL PHOTOGRAPHER

Meeno Pulice

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS

Miyuki Kawamura

Kourtnie Labay

About The Contemporary Film Series

The Contemporary Film Series is a natural partnership between Ruby City, who fosters the creation, presentation, and understanding of innovative expression through contemporary art and Contemporary at Blue Star, who inspires, nurtures, and innovates through contemporary art. Through this collaboration, both organizations demonstrate a commitment to providing access to compelling films that galvanize meaningful conversations within the San Antonio community and beyond.