Points Of Departure (POD) Ian Kaler

The filmversion is based on Kalers new solo "POD Hyphen" for which he invited artistic companions to choreograph for him and with him. The live performance consists of three parts that are both independent and related. The opening video prologue with images of Ian Kaler and a falcon in the woods (cinematography by Diara Sow) is inspired by the mythological figure of the harpy. The idea of working with a falcon comes from conversations with the set designer Stephanie Rauch, who also created an extraordinary abandoned suburban car park meets edge of the forest scenario for the production. For the second part of the live performance, Kaler invited Jen Rosenblit to write and direct a monologue. The starting point was work conducted on a teenage character with fragments of inner monologues, stories, memories and journal entries somewhere between autobiographical and fictional narratives. The filmversion uses parts of the original texts by Rosenblit in a new arrangement of voiceovers recorded during the rehearsal process.
In the final part of "POD Hyphen", the choreographer and movement director Stephane “Peeps” Moun shared techniques from his practice with Kaler, which is marked by elements of house dance, hip-hop, tap dance and jazz dance. Together, they worked on merging Kaler’s own movement vocabulary with Peeps’ methods and approach in order to co-choreograph a hypnotic movement sequence that is as powerfull as it is subtle.
The filmversion POINTS OF DEPARTURE creates a poetic juxtaposition (editing Dafne Narvaez Berlfein) of the various footages and narrative threads and is accompanied by the mesmerizing electronic soundtrack by the Berlin music producer rRoxymore alias Hermione Frank providing a through line based on the live soundtrack of the performance.