Anchors of Iridescence Part I and II

(Chez Bushwick Summer 2017) 

Two short films: duets/scenes between two women of color                                                               10 minutes                                                               Directed, Filmed, and Editing: Kayla Farrish                            Collaborators and Performance: Myssi Robinson and Dominica Greene                 Music: Solange and Nina Simone                                                   Premiere at Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn in September 2017         Writings: Kayla Farrish

Anchors of Iridescence speaks to ancestry, roots, and inherited weighted history. How women of color have historically taken on these oppressive care taking roles and kept pushing forward anyway. In whatever way possible, prayer, anger, anchored weight, love, effort, silence, and dance kept their light onwards. Questioning what community and support looks like among black women, the film exemplifies shared storytelling, grief, impact, and visibility. There is a tension between the past, the tension of our current societal circumstance, and the ability to make change.

FILM SHOWINGS

Chez Bushwick Residency Performance at Center for Performance Research

Bushwick Open Studios- Chez Bushwick- September 2017

Dance Film Deconstructed///Local Artist Program Curated by Lucy Kerr at BKSD- October 2017

Create: ART at Gallim Studios - October2017

Women’s Work Film Festival in Detroit, Michigan- May 2018

Black Bodies Sonata

(Chez Bushwick Summer 2017)

Film                                                                            6 minutes                                                                     Duet performed by Kayla Farrish and Nikolas Owens                     Choreographed, Directed, and Editing: Kayla Farrish                           Camera Work: Deborah Corrales and Hannah Wendel                                    Premiere at Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn September 2017

Black Bodies Sonata is a duet peering into the humanization and dehumanization of black bodies reflecting what are the layers, trauma, and methods of survival in the black experience. The live performance transferred and elaborated from my recent dance film, "Black Bodies Sonata", looks at black politicized bodies in predominantly white spaces. The juxtapositions of finding our flight, freedom, identity, voice, along with how quickly we are forgotten flesh, images of fear, and formed by society to accommodate to survive. I just wanted to see images and ideas of our experiences, and to question what life do we imagine beyond this?

you were in my dreams last night

Short Film made through the Chez Bushwick Artist in Residence Program in Summer 2017

Collaborators: Rebecca Margolick and Jessica Alexander

Whimsy and gusto through Sam Cooke “You Send Me”

Filming, Choreography, and Editing by Kayla Farrish

With Delicacy and Permanence (May 2017)

Live Solo & Short Film.                                                         10 minutes                                                                Directed, Choreographed, Edited and Performed by: Kayla Farrish                    Additional Camera Work: Maximillian Canion Hawkeye                           Premiered at Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance 

This was the first short film Kayla Farrish produced and directed. She had been writing and storyboarding cinematic concepts and music video/dance film for a couple years while living in New York. Within the opportunity of this solo creation, she experimented with how emotion and scene could fill the space extending into film.

Film SHARINGS

Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) Boogie Down Series: “Dancin in the Bronx” May 2017

Bushwick Open Studios at Chez Bushwick- Film and Improvisation Exhibit September 2017

Hollye Bynum/Of Bones Dance Mouthfull- October 2017

With Delicacy and Permanence reflects the simmer of nostalgia. Its held in the memory of old love and the capability of it to reappear, as the intimacy, infatuation, and in betweens of new relationships bring you forward into the processing. There is this magical hyper-glow in the softening of your heart with the sharpness and hardness from experience, in contrasting duality. There is something suspending about the risk in those layers in our history of intimacy.

Reflecting on the beginnings of what I thought love was, I pay homage to those wild beginnings. I reflect on the new forming of myself that I couldn't comprehend yet. It led into heartbreak that bled in color, music, and unhinged movement. And the film broke through that longing and story- sharing the desire to be close and the breakdown of things not working out

IN PROCESS

Beloved Loveless/ Incredible Violet

I went to the beach