GS student film finds NYC through dance

A new dance film blends grace and awkwardness to demonstrate the fragility of reality.

“NY Export: Opus Jazz” emanates all of these qualities to create a universal portrayal of adolescence that resonates across generations. Ellen Bar, GS and New York City Ballet soloist, has collaborated with fellow NYCB dancer Sean Suozzi, to develop and produce a film version of choreographer and Academy award-winning director Jerome Robbins’ 1958 work, “NY Export: Opus Jazz.”

The project was conceived, created, produced, and performed by the same enterprising young artists who provide the focus for the film. Though the dancers are central to the success of the production, the real stars of this dance film are New York City, Robert Prince’s musical score, and Robbins’ indefatigable, timeless choreography.

The film has a slinky, transcendental quality that echoes Robbins’ style of movement. “NY Export: Opus Jazz” begins with stillness and reverent silence around a lone woman standing in the waves by the seashore, and quietly builds a connection between the limits of New York City’s borders and the innermost boroughs and nooks of the city. The opening montages focus on the movement of several individuals throughout New York City, using various modes of transportation—cab, subway, walking, bus, and bicycle. Intention is nonexistent. No one speaks.

The film is dominated by sounds of the city and a conspicuous absence of dialogue. The result of this oddly blank, silent sequence demonstrates how people can come from all walks of life and find community in jazz music and dance. Out of nowhere, like some sort of dream, all the characters meet in a “West Side Story”-esque lot and begin to dance together.

There is a serious issue of temporal dissonance in this film—the lack of continuity of time ultimately distracts from the dancing. There is no talking until 20 minutes into the film, when all the dancers are together at a dinner, and the conversation is not discernible.

The focus is on two dancers sitting back to back in two booths. The girl leaves first, the boy follows, then they meet at abandoned, overgrown railroad tracks as the sun is setting. The sensuous, deliberate, tension-filled pas de deux manages to be shy in its intimacy.

The technical skill and control of the dancers in this pas de deux is really remarkable, though their duet seems more like a celebration of the possibilities of connection and romantic interlude than like an actual connection between the two.

This moment ends as abruptly as the other moments in the film, as the male partner stops before the music has reached its resolution and leaves the female dancer kneeling in the dirt between the railroad tracks.

Bar considers the timelessness of dance from a new angle, combining sensuous imagery with a serious examination of movement.