Frame Rush

A showcase of innovative works from recent graduates of the MA Screendance. This screening highlights emerging artists pushing the boundaries of dance on film through bold aesthetics and personal perspectives.

Muse | Eloïse Frey | UK | 2024

'To be a woman is to perform.'

A short film inspired by how it feels to be a woman. To be perceived as, looked at, stared at. Who is the artist without his muse? Who is the muse without an audience? Who is really in control?

Mijita Linda | Cat Caruncho | USA | 2024

This film serves as a tribute to the bond I share with my father. It captures the playful and endearing nature of our relationship, expressed through vibrant visuals and 80s rock inspired music. Through this work, I aim to both visually and sonically honor his influence, acknowledging that I would not be where I am today without his love and support.

Rwy'n ymarfer dod i'ch adnabod (I practice getting to know you) | Lauren Heckler | UK | 2025

This experimental short is a meditation on embodied, spatial and mediated visible reach, with the repetitious hand-held ‘zooming’ and diegetic sound, offering the viewer of this work an improvised and rhythmically edited 'kino-eye' encounter.

Are you human | Oddalys Salcido | UK | 2025

Captchas have evolved into near-impossible puzzles and proving you’re human is harder than before. As endless streams of meme culture and brain rotting content flood our screens, people are pushed to absurd and surreal lengths just to verify their existence. The film explores the blurring lines between flesh and machine, questioning how dance may be the last indicator of being human.

Static | Gabriel John Heathman | UK | 2024

Static explores the experience of a young man who quietly struggles with a porn addiction and his reliance on technology. We follow him as he journeys outside his home, exploring the feelings of isolation and shame he carries with him. Constantly drawn to the comfort he finds in technology, he is forced to face his shame alone in a haunting confrontation.

Out of Phase | Lizzie Johnston | UK | 2024

Travel through surrealist dreamscapes, where human desire for identity and connection come to life - blurring the line between reality and fantasy.

Perfidion Albion | Marie S Williamson | UK | 2024

Perfidion Albion delves into the psych breakdown of a news presenter as he prepares to go live on air. Doubt creeps in as he begins to question the lies he’s been asked to broadcast versus his own truth. The descent into his mind unfolds through surreal visions of what the unfiltered truth is.

Mind Paralysis| Laura Marcela Bodner | UK | 2024

Mind Paralysis delves into the inner turmoil of indecision and uncertainty. The film invites viewers into a world where the weight of countless possibilities overwhelms the mind, capturing the tension between the calm exterior and the chaotic landscape of thought. Through its narrative, it portrays the struggle of navigating life’s myriad choices and the paralysis that often accompanies them.

Peak Hour in the House | Blue Ka Wing | Hong Kong | 2024

Peak Hour in the House illustrates a solitary woman who, while "enjoying" her private space, faces sudden surges of anxiety and learns to coexist with them. In the midnight, she enjoys her me-time, savoring moments of solitude. However, this is precisely when the hidden anxieties within her are most likely to visit. In the stillness of the night, the doorbell rings, akin to a nightmare striking during peaceful sleep. Gradually, she attempts to unveil her body like a diary, page by page. She uncovers not only the chaotic thoughts in her brain but also the internal organs carrying her personal history. The accumulated impurities over the years require her to untangle and digest them herself.

By courageously confronting the sources of her anxiety and becoming someone capable of embracing negative energy, she gains the strength to make positive changes.

International screendance works that explore identity, belonging, and cultural memory through the language of the body. These films reveal how movement can express untold stories across borders and backgrounds.

Unless We Dance | Hanz Rippe Gabriele, Fernanda Pineda Palencia | Columbia | 2023

Bonays, an Afro-dance teacher, undertakes an initiative to rescue young people from the crime that stalks Quibdó, a city with the highest homicide rates in Colombia. This is how Black Boys Chocó emerged, a dance company where hundreds of young people face brutal destinies through a passion. Unless We Dance portrays union and dance as the greatest expression of shielding the Afro people, it is a tribute to their act of resilience and to all the lives that have been lost along the way.

¡salsa! | Antonina Kerguelén Román | Columbia | 2024

In between prejudiced gazes, Margarita, a free-spirited woman and salsa music lover, walks away from her marriage searching for her own identity. Her path crosses with Liana’s, a deaf tourist. Seeing in Liana a world foreign to her own, Margarita finds the perfect company to explore her true being and decides to teach Liana how to dance, understanding her deafness as an opportunity for a different type of communication, tactile and corporeal.

The Joy and Sorrow of Time | Sara Jordan | Denmark | 2024

The future is a delicate dance of possibilities, where every choice and every moment shapes the path ahead. The fragility of what's next reminds us to handle it with care, to nurture our dreams and aspirations, and to believe in the limitless potential of tomorrow. Time is a valuable currency.

Santa Barbara | Bárbara Fdez. | Spain | 2024

​​Santa Barbara a documentary about ashes and the relationship between the human and the burnt.

Ode to Age | Kati Kallio | Finland | 2024

The film portrays how wild, free and beautiful the aging body is, how pointless the fear of wrinkles and skin folds is. Ode to Age is a dance film about elderly women who have had enough of the colorlessness of life. Together, they take off their everyday clothes and by joyful and undisciplined throw themselves into the Finnish summer.

Duet | Yi Meng Liu | China | 2024

It is a search and recognition of the identity of fraternal twin dancers. We share similar genes, but we are also searching for our own unique identity. We have both harmony and conflict, similarities and differences between us. We feel the complexity of identity and the importance of finding one's unique position. This is our dialogue with the environment, as well as our dialogue with our own souls.

Kielo | Sinem Kayacan, Janina Rajakangas | Finland | 2025

Kielo finds it hard to sit still in class. She takes a break venturing into the corridors of her imagination. The film Kielo touches on the subject of love, support as well as contempt between young people in the school environment, with a focus on the convergence of neurodivergence and sisterhood/peer-hood. *We use these terms (sisterhood/peer-hood) simultaneously due to non-binary performers in the working group.

Motherhood| Nicole Spring | United States | 2024 |

In the light of dawn she awakens in her nest, one baby under her wing, the other two in search of food.

In the Same Boat | Mervi Junkkonen, Mia Malviniemi | Sweden | 2023

A film about the limits of the body and the boundless mind. With the help of a dancer, one of Rauno's childhood memories comes to life through dance and movement. It’s a journey of misadventures and his father's new national cursing record.

Le Rayon Est Vert | Marion Renerre | France | 2025

With her friend Yass, Mia recalls the moment when she danced with Léo at a neighborhood party. A few seconds are all it takes for them to become one, together, with the music.

Maldonne | Leïla Ka, Josselin Carré | 2024

Eleven women and their perspective, each wearing a flowery dress and a buried sorrow due to her condition as a woman.

Together, and without the need for words, they decide to free themselves. A collective revolt begins with positive rage.

Hiphop Purée | Ryan Renshaw | Australia | 2024

Two sisters confront supernatural suburban forces and their own dark secrets on a perilous journey to Thursday night dinner.

Graduate Screening | New Voices

Eloïse Frey (she/her) is a Strasbourg-born French contemporary dancer, movement creative, dance photographer and filmmaker based in London. She began her training in Cunningham and ballet at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg from the age of six to seventeen, before moving to London to complete the BA Hons in Contemporary Dance and the MA Screendance at London Contemporary Dance School. Her work explores abstract themes that reflect on the human experience in today’s society. She is interested in working with interdisciplinarity to broaden the reach, concept and aesthetic of contemporary movement.

Cat Caruncho (she/her) is a queer Latina choreographer and screendance artist from New York. She began her professional training at Professional Performing Arts School and is a former student of The Ailey School. She graduated from Adelphi University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance. From her time at Adelphi, she has created numerous dance films that have been selected to be screened at multiple film festivals. Cat has recently obtained her Master's in Screendance from London Contemporary Dance School.

Lauren Heckler is an interdisciplinary artist-educator from south Wales, working across performance, drawing, video and social sculpture. Her practice is shaped by field research — deep listening, site sensitivity, collaborative conversations and dreaming processes. Their work explores embodied and environmental health, cycles of renewal, and the stories that structure personal and societal behaviours. Lauren has worked on public art commissions, exhibited nationally and internationally, produced residencies and artist-moving-image programmes, and participated in numerous projects centring cross-cultural exchange.

Oddalys Salcido is a queer latina choreographic media artist born and raised on the internet. Their work slips between movement, film, interactive installations, and critical theory. Rooted in dance and expanded through screendance, their practice explores how bodies, especially those marked by queerness and racialization can perform, transform, and exist. Their work invites urgent, joyful, and speculative play toward futures where bold emotionality and radical tenderness are not only possible, but necessary.

Gabriel John Heathman (he/him) is a 25-year-old white British male with short brown hair and a dark beard. Born in Bournemouth, England, Gabriel Heathman began training in dance from a young age and later pursued professional studies at The Northern Ballet School in Manchester. Following a short break from dance, he completed a Master’s degree in Screendance at London Contemporary Dance School in 2025. His work explores the modern male experience and its relationship to movement and dance.

Lizzie Johnston (she/her) is an Australian Screendance maker from lutruwita/Tasmania, currently based in London, UK. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2020 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). With support from Arts Tasmania, she completed the MA Screendance course at The London Contemporary Dance School (The Place) in 2024. In 2025, Lizzie received a National Lottery Project Grant from Arts Council England, supporting the creation of a new Screendance work.

Marie S Williamson since a young age has been involved in the arts and activism, and has continued to expand her knowledge in both these areas. Her passion of expressing yourself through movement, and ensuring that non privileged voices are heard alongside others is the most essential for the arts. At 13 years old, she was part of the Edinburgh Youth Against War movement, and helped create the documentary Old Enough to Know Better, produced by Pilton Video. Her love of movement grew from here.

After growing up in Edinburgh, Marie went on to complete a BA in Contemporary Dance at Northern School of Contemporary Dance. She left university and moved back to Edinburgh and fell into a career in aerial dance as an accessible performer. In 2024 Marie completed a MA in Screendance at London Contemporary Dance School, where she created two of her films ''Perfidious Albion'' and ''Together We Form A Whole''. Since leaving the university, Marie has moved back to Edinburgh where she is finding balance between activism, community, screendance, aerial and life.

Laura Marcela Bodner is a screendance practitioner with a background in dance, based in London, UK. She completed a BA in Diverse Dance Styles in IRIE! Dance Theatre and has trained in various movement disciplines, which have shaped her approach to dance and choreography. Alongside her passion for movement, she developed a strong interest in film and photography, leading her to pursue an MA in Screendance to explore the relationship between dance and the moving image.

Blue Ka Wing left-hander and independent dance artist from Hong Kong. She started her dance training at the age of 16 and in 2010 she graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, majoring in Contemporary Dance and Choreography. In 2023, Blue has been awarded the scholarship from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund for studying Master of Arts in Screendance at The Place, London Contemporary Dance School.

International Screening | Embodied Narratives: Global Stories Through Movement

Hanz Rippe Gabriele (he/him) is a film director and cinematographer. As co-founder of Páramo Films, he is dedicated to producing documentaries in Latin America, highlighting the region's realities and social, cultural, and humanitarian issues.

Fernanda Pineda Palencia (she/her) graduated from the Cinematographic Research Center, Argentina. She is a photographer, director, producer, and co-director of Páramo Films. With more than 8 years of experience in documentary, she has approached indigenous, Afro, and rural communities, telling stories in the context of the Colombian conflict and post-conflict.

Marion Renerre is a French director who is constantly exploring new creative avenues. She experiments with different mediums to craft unique, sensitive, and storytelling-driven visuals. With a deeply holistic approach, she likes to capture the beauty of both people and moments, bringing authenticity and emotion to every frame.

Nicole Spring started as a dancer and actor, but later discovered a passion for filmmaking. She's especially drawn to dance films and is excited to keep exploring, collaborating, and connecting with other humans across various mediums as she grows as a producer and director. "Motherhood" is a personal project inspired by a morning in bed with her two young children.

Mervi Junkkonen is a Finnish documentary filmmaker and film editor based in Uppsala, Sweden. She studied film (MA) at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Mervi has directed several award winning documentary films and worked as an editor on numerous documentary and fiction films. She has received three times the Jussi Prize (the Finnish "Oscar") for her editing. In recent years she has also begun working with video art and dance films.

Mia Malviniemi, Finnish choreographer (MA) has been working with dance art since 1996, when she graduated as a choreographer from the dance department of the Theatre Academy in Finland. She has produced tens of contemporary dance pieces during her career and has also worked with theatre. Malviniemi is one of the founding members of the dance group Malviniemi Company, of which she acts as artistic director. Malviniemi Company was established in 2011 and is based in Vaasa, Finland.

Yi-Meng Liu is a Chinese dance artist and emerging dance film director based in London. With 12 years of professional training in ballet and modern dance, she blends physical precision with emotional depth to create visually compelling narratives through movement. Yi Meng began her formal dance education at the Shanghai Dance Academy and later earned her undergraduate degree in choreography from the Xinhai Conservatory of Music. She is currently pursuing her MA in Dance Performance at London Contemporary Dance School. Her work as a director is deeply informed by her background as a performer and choreographer. She approaches the camera as a partner in choreography, using it to explore the relationship between body, space, and memory. Her films often investigate themes of identity, transformation, and emotional resonance. Yi Meng’s first dance film, DUET, was selected for multiple international dance film festivals, marking her entry into the field with a unique artistic voice that bridges East and West, classical form and contemporary storytelling.

Leïla Ka's success is amplified by phenomenal sold out tours: she is the most prominently featured young choreographer today with over a hundred annual dates. Leïla Ka has managed to impose her combative energy within a few years. Both powerfully theatrical and incredibly precise, her dance, with its raw and fierce beauty, grabs you by the guts with an emotion ever so intense because it is driven by monstrous talent and renewed aesthetics. Leïla Ka entered through the doors of urban dances, and fascinates with the sincerity and burning necessity that emanates from her work. Her movement is sharp, chiseled, relentless, yet paradoxically relaxed, and works on strong emotions. After the international success of her first three multi-award-winning pieces, Pode ser, C’est toi qu’on adore, Se faire la belle, Leïla Ka created Maldonne, a group piece imbued with the same intense rage. Nominated for the International Dance Prize at Sadler’s Wells in London, the piece features five women, 40 dresses, and a burning desire for freedom. Leïla Ka embodies a revolting youth, and invents a style outside the codes. This self-taught artist forges a path off the beaten track of academia. She started as a teenager with urban dances and also practiced non-verbal improvisational theater. She describes herself as a kid who wanted to devour the world: "At 25, I seized every opportunity that came my way!" she recalls. After performing in the famous piece May B by choreographer Maguy Marin, Leïla Ka has since created her own choreographies, enriched by her urban and contemporary influences. She is now an associate artist at the CENTQUATRE - Paris, the national stages of Cavaillon, and Dieppe.

Josselin Carré is an independent director working in the field of live performance, particularly music and dance. Passionate about live performance, his emotions as a spectator often serve as the starting point for his films. In 2006, he directed his first documentary, “Corps, Points, Lignes” which chronicles the “Dance, Body, Architecture” encounters at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale. In 2014,“Médo(S)” was released, a feature film born from six years of companionship with jazz trumpeter and troublemaker Médéric Collignon, which was selected for numerous festivals. Josselin Carré has filmed the greatest musicians in jazz (Michel Portal, Archie Shepp...), pop rock (Jeanne Added, The Do, Camelia Jordana, Serge Teyssot-Gay...), world music (Salif Keita, Ibrahim Maalouf...), rap (Oxmo Puccino), and electro (Rone, Flavien Berger). In 2019, he was chosen to direct and supervise the live and televised recordings of Christine and The Queens' international tour, “Chris”. On this occasion, he filmed at the world's biggest festivals (Coachella, Glastonbury, Les Vieilles Charrues, WeloveGreen…). Always serving his work, Josselin Carré continually reflects on the artist's place in society. With a polymorphic perspective, he tells the multiple links that exist between the arts, and between art and life. Attentive to artistic potential, he maintains contact with the younger generation through regular collaborations with Jazz Migration and Danse Élargie, two programs supporting emerging talents. In the world of dance, the Paris Opera called on him in 2020 to co-direct the first paid Facebook Live; he filmed choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Mehdi Kerkouche, and Tess Voelker. Additionally, he has collaborated with the collective (LA)Horde, Boris Charmatz, Ousmane Sy, Marseille National Ballet, the Lyon Dance Biennale, the Japanese House, the Julidans and Cinedans festivals (Amsterdam), the Paris Philharmonic, the Paris City Theatre, the FAIRE collective, the Flamenco Biennale at the Chaillot Theatre, and Mourad Merzouki / National Choreographic Center of Créteil and Val-de-Marne on the occasion of Nuit Blanche 2021.

Ryan Renshaw is a graduate of the esteemed Institut Villa Pierrefeu Finishing School with a Bachelor of Etiquette (with honours). Ryan is a film and television director based in the city of Shangri-La. His career began in the 1990’s where he worked as a director for MTV in Australia, the United States and in Latin America. He has completed more than 80 music videos and worked as creative director for INXS. Over the past 6 years he has turned his attention to Screendance. His screendance works have been screened at over 150 international film festivals including New York's Dance on Camera, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival and Screendance International in Stockholm, and won the Jury Prize at the 2020 LA Dance Film Festival, the Grand Prix Nuria Font, Best International Film at Spain’s 2021 Fiver International Dance Film Festival, the Jury Prize for Best Film at 2020 Zinetika Festival in Pamplona, San Sebastian and Bilbao, Best In Show at Inspired Dance Film Festival, Sydney, Best Film at the NoWhere Festival in Seoul and the Audience Prize for Best Film at the 2020 Inshadow Festival, Portugal.

Bárbara Fdez. (1997, Madrid) began her professional career in the photography department in productions, where she has discovered the different dynamics of an audiovisual production. Her first short film as director and co-writer has been El baile del estornino (2020) which claims its space in the LGTBIQ+ world, screened at the Sitges Film Festival 2021. Regardless of the format she feels linked to the social and family issues that surround us. Within the world of fashion film and video clip Corazón de Tango, starring Carmen Machi and Ramón Barea, premiered in Broadway, NY, winner of Best Video Clip of the Year at the Gaztea Awards, 2023, and Jury Award at Medina del Campo 2023. The piece "Save The Future" (2022) is a cry for sustainable fashion in our country, has been screened on Filmin through the Choreoscope festival. She is currently researching the documentary film "Retrato de lo invisible", selected in DokLab 2021 and her previous short film of the same title, which won the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the Astorga Festival 2023. In addition, she is working in parallel on the film "Avril" after its passage through the Lab del Norte and FilmLac6, which has the Development Aid of the Principality of Asturias.

Sara Jordan (she/her) is a Danish choreographer, director, and cinematographer working at the intersection of movement, image, and identity. Her artistic language is rooted in street dance styles such as hip hop and house, woven with African-American cultural influences and shaped by a minimalist choreographic aesthetic.

Sinem Kayacan is a visual artist, originally from Istanbul and based in Helsinki. She holds an MA degree in Filmmaking and is currently a doctoral candidate in the field of Contemporary Art. Her works focus on embodied and sensual forms of knowledge production as well as the concepts and methods of performance and performativity. She worked as a full time university lecturer for several years on concept development and videography subjects. Her work has been exhibited/screened internationally.

Janina Rajakangas is a choreographer, performer and teacher based in Helsinki. She has been offered grants for artistic work since 2017 by Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Finnish Cultural Foundation. She works both with very detailed choreographic material and large scale scores for groups. At the centre for what she does in trying to understand how dance comes from what we encounter in the everyday. Love, death, age, sensitivities. Embodying these things becomes dance in our projects. “I truly believe dance is a crucial way to communicate without words. And it is in all of us. This is why we work with a variety of performers from professionals to youth and the elderly.”

Kati Kallio (she/her) is an award winning dance filmmaker from Finland. Kallio lives in Helsinki and works internationally as an artist, curator and teaches dance film making. Her films have been screened internationally in film, dance and dance film festivals as well as broadcasted on television. By May 2025 her film 'Walks with Me' had received 19 awards. She received in 2024 a special award ‘Tanssin maineteko’ from the Circus and Dance Union in Finland for her works in the field of dance film in Finland.

Antonina Kerguelén Román (she/her) is a queer Colombian writer/director, SCAD alumna, and a Creative Producer at AG Studios, where she works making original narrative content. His debut short film "¡salsa!" had its world premiere at the 22nd edition of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2024.

Frame Rush is directed and produced collaboratively by the MA Screendance 2025 Cohort.

Programming and Creative Direction: The MA Screendance Cohort 2025

Artist Liaison: Xintian Tacy Zhao, Alexandra Bechikh

Audience & Ticketing: Riley Castellanet

Event production: Eimyn Cheung, Fanshu Vikki Xu, Jacy Keddie

Marketing: Becky Johnson

Finance: Alex Turner

Technical Production: Jessie Lee Thorne

Frame Rush Producer / Unit Leader: Gitta Wigro

Follow Frame Rush onInstagram

Follow Frame Rush on Facebook