A dance film that looks closely at Flamenco and more particularly the Saeta style. The film takes traditional flamenco to an abstract level with an eerie overtone. The dance short takes the traditional religious song, the Saeta, sung during Spain’s Holy Week and brings it to a modern setting. The song is heard typically during a procession and is usually associated with death. The Flamenco movement vocabulary explores grief and longing and the film plays with this concept. Black is usually associated with mourning and the Spanish comb, the peineta, is important to the Saeta song and to Holy Week. In the film the peineta is juxtaposed by a modern outfit and is playing with the ideas of new ways of seeing and old ways of being. The film’s costuming and dancing pushes boundaries and Koko Zin’s camera work frames the movement and adds to the anxiety the choreography is playing with. David Ajiri’s editing is crisp and makes “Saeta: The mourning” an eerie and haunting dance film.
Production Notes:
Concept: Koko Zin and R.Cisneros
Directed: Koko Zin and R.Cisneros
Edited: David Ajiri and Koko Zin
Photography: Koko Zin
Music: David Sherriff and live recording of man on streets in Seville, Spain during Semana Santa (Holy Week).
Poster Design: David Ajiri
Length: 6 minutes
Production year: July 2016
Screened at:
- Festival de videodanza internacional-Videomovimientos Colombia, South America
- Open Art Short Film Festival in Dusseldorf, Germany 2016
- Broken Knuckle Film Festival NY, USA
- Rio Web Festival Rio, Brazil
- MAP Frame + Form Film Dance Festival North Carolina, USA
- ScreenDance Festival Stockholm, Sweden
- Cyprus International Film Festival “Golden Aphrodite” Paphos, Pafos