If you missed ScreenDance Miami from Tigertail Productions, you missed a week of extraordinary dances made specifically for film and camera. The week-long festival highlighted filmmakers from New York, Memphis, Montreal and Spain, as well as South Florida-based choreographers, dancers and filmmakers who exhibited work at PAMM, The Screening Room, Inkub8 and the Miami Beach Cinematheque. The films, selected by festival director Marissa Alma Nick, revealed the artistic value of dance on film and the expanding possibilities for this genre.

Marissa Alma Nick and John Kirkscey. Photo by Neil de la Flor

The best example of this trend is John Kirkscey’s “Bookin,” a short film shot on location in Memphis that brings together two seemingly unrelated dance styles. Kirkscey hired four dancers – two “jookers” and two ballet dancers. When it was time to film, Kirkscey decided not to introduce the dancers to each other until the day the film was shot. It worked. “Bookin” demonstrated the commonalities that movement and image share. With an original score, “Bookin”became more than just a film with dance, but a story about the brief history of growing dance movement placed in context.

Drug dealers and gangsters originated what’s known as Memphis Jookin’. It’s a dance of pomp and circumstance. When dealers and gang members would walk into a bar, they would strut their stuff, or “jook,” to either scare people or advertise that they had drugs to sell. Kirkscey decided to fuse jookin’ with classical ballet to invent a new movement. The film reveals the synergy between these two seemingly unrelated styles.

Through the process of making this film, Kirkscey revealed the artists, dancers and choreographers who make up Memphis’ underground scene, which gets little attention due to the city’s historical connection and obsession with Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll. And, like ScreenDance Miami, “Bookin'” takes dance on film to a new level, one where new and emerging concepts about dance on film come together to tell complex stories about movement, history and human relationships.