The undeniable truth is, we are all going to die. So why not embrace the inevitable and go dancing to our graves? This year’s Nightfall—the crowning event of Green-Wood’s fall season—is inspired by the danse macabre or dance of death. Dating to the Middle Ages, it describes skeletons enticing kings, cardinals, and common folk to their graves with musical accompaniment (or for the more reluctant, by hook or by crook). It’s a poignant reminder that the same fate awaits us all. Till then, shake off any fears or anxieties and join us in a celebration of time we have left together.
This not-to-be-missed evening of music and moving image set across Green-Wood’s historic landscape is co-curated by Death of Classical and Rooftop Films, entertainment provided by the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, and storytelling and show and tell by Morbid Anatomy. Kings County Brewers Collective is the official beverage sponsor for Nightfall.
The Films
Cinderella (Aschenputtel)
Lotte Reiniger | Germany | 13
A short silhouette animation by groundbreaking German animator Lotte Reiniger, based on the famous fairy tale.
A Girl
Misao Arai | Japan | 11
The father of butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata appears in his final performance, taking up the character of "a girl". The glitchy unnatural physicality lends an eeriness and uncanny quality to the performance, typical of Butoh and its interest in grotesque imagery and a rejection of refinement and understatement.
O Black Hole!
Renee Zhan | US | 16
A woman who can't stand the passing of time turns herself into a black hole. A thousand unchanging years pass inside her warm and dark embrace. Finally, the Singularity awakens inside. Singularity sings and dances her way through the black hole on her journey to restore life and death to the Universe.
Pas de deux
Norman McLaren | Canada | 13
Norman McLaren takes a look at the choreography of ballet, with cinema effects that are all that you would expect from this master of improvisation in music and illustration. By exposing the same frames as many as ten times, the artist creates a multiple image of the ballerina and her partner (Margaret Mercier and Vincent Warren).
Prom Night
Celia Rowlson-Hall | US | 9
Prom night is ritual, disco balls, expectation, corsages, dresses, holding, sweating, status, entering in twos, balloons, school gyms, dancing slow and fast.
Pulse At The Centre Of Being
Tsz-wing Ho | Hong Kong | 4
It is a 2D experimental animation which is accompanied by the music, “Pulse At The Centre Of Being” composed by Max Cooper. Beautiful things happened inside a human through different combinations of flowers, organs and body parts.
Sèt Lam
Vincent Fontano | France | 23
In an insular city’s ghetto, in the midst of a trance ritual, a Young girl is paralysed by fear. She is afraid her loved ones may be hurt or even disappear. It is then that her Grandmother tells her the strange tale of Edwardo, the first one of his kin to have seen and fought death. The child is captivated, feeling that there is a reason her grandmother is recounting this tale.
Well Wishes My Love, Your Love
Gabriel Gabriel Garble | Sweden | 9
A boy lends his friend a prosthetic arm for the day.
Zoon
Jonatan Schwenk | Germany | 4
In the dark swamps of a nocturnal forest, a group of gleaming axolotls is in heat, nuzzling and nibbling one another’s limbs. Soon a much larger, two-legged forest-dweller encounters the lustful group and reaches down to gobble one of the small shimmering creatures. His plump friends begin to partake as well and a feast begins.
