Constructed Sight Dance Film Festival Returns in March

Constructed Sight is back, but this time it has expanded to include an online dance film festival. The ten-day event will kick off with an in-person Opening Night Screening featuring works from Shana Simmons Dance company members and featured international guest artists creating an hour and a half long show. This Opening Night Event will be live streamed to a YouTube audience and feature a few selected artists for a brief talk back.

SSD has received 120 international submissions which a panel of 7 members have curated to select festival features and the Opening Night Constructed Sight film event. Audiences can purchase tickets online for both the Opening Night Event and the online film festival which will be available for ten days.

The panel has created four categories for viewing: the Opening Night Event is a carefully selected showcase featuring a wide variety of styles you can expect to see in the online festival; the Panelist Picks category are films that truly highlight outstanding creative voices and high quality films; the General Festival which encompasses 50 films from all over the world with strong artistic vision and commitment; and three Emerging Artists that have put together unique products.

Each film is under 20 minutes and showcases themes such as mental health, environmental issues, humorous personality reflections, responses to the pandemic, and storyline journeys.

Virtual audiences can expect to see films from The Netherlands, Italy, Nigeria, Armenia, Greece, France, Canada, Belgium, India, England, Israel, and a variety of US cities. Constructed Sight is a platform created by Shana Simmons, Jamie Erin Murphy, and Brady Sanders to showcase a variety of dance films through entertaining events. These seasoned choreographers collaborated on generating new films through site specific choreography since Fall 2020 in response to the pandemic aiming to generate entertaining dance works through new mediums which were originally inspired by public works of art around Pittsburgh. The trio has individually created 15 separate films to date.

This film festival is the only of its kind in Pittsburgh and hopes to be an annual occurrence. SSD is in communication with Film Pittsburgh to connect the film industry to the Opening Night Event.

The full festival will offer two artists panels where artists can connect to outside audience members through online discussion events, the Opening Night in-person + online show, a dance film workshop the closing Saturday of the festival, and the 10-day online run of the films.

Simmons says about this series: “Constructed Sight was born from a need to continue to produce high quality dance performance experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. We want to commit to producing Constructed Sight as a fun and unique dance film festival which encourages a wide variety of productions. These films might have a full-scale budget or they might be one individual which shows a strong artistic talent and is able to create high quality art without financial support. We want to encourage artistic voices from all over the world to continue to create and provide an opportunity for Pittsburgh audiences to see international artwork.”

Constructed Sight Dance Film Festival will take place from March 11-20 in person and online. In person events will be at Attack Theatre in Pittsburgh. Online access will be granted March 11. Cost to attend the In Person/Opening Night Event (includes Festival Pass) is $45; Online Festival Pass is $15; and Student/Artist Discounted Tickets are $10.

Visit https://www.shanasimmonsdance.com/constructedsight.html for more information.