The Polish Dance Theater's choreographic film project "Herbarium," directed by Iwona Pasinska, received its 16th consecutive award. At the Utah Dance Film Festival 2023, it was recognized in the Best of Production Design category - for best set design.
The visual layer of the piece, which was honored with an award at the Salt Lake City festival, exudes intense, warm colors, evoking an association with a meadow and at the same time a sense of communing with the eternal energy of nature. Hugging the ground, the dancers create a picturesque, flat composition, moving through the film frame in the likeness of leaves shifted by the wind. Rose petals, specially imported from Holland, were used in the production. We look at the secret life of flowers from two temporal perspectives - one day, from dawn to dusk, and through the prism of the seasons, from spring to winter.
The author of the sets and costumes for "Herbarium" is Andrzej Grabowski - theater photographer, portraitist, set designer. He has been photographing body expression, the body in motion and dance for more than 30 years. He is the author of theatrical sets for the performances: "Trop: Dance as Art", "Saligia. The 7 Deadly Sins," "ReMix," "Last Sunday," "Circumstance," and "Fallen Angels." He designs sets and costumes for performances and choreographic film projects for the Polish Dance Theater (including "Polka," "Water Hen or Delusion," "KoczkodanSe," "Initiation," "Brzemię," "Toporiel," "Ta Mara," and others). He created photo material for the publications of the Polish Dance Theater - the jubilee monograph "1973- 2018 PTT" and the albums "45", "Natural Histories" and "Toporail" (the latter two awarded in the "Most Beautiful Books of the Year" competitions of the Polish Society of Book Publishers in 2019 and 2020).
.Among the 16 honors that "The Herbarium" has totaled around the world, there were, among others, 5 Grand Prizes for Best Dance Film (in the US, Venezuela, Beirut and Canada) and 4 Audience Awards (in France, Bulgaria and the US). The film also won the Best Director Award for Iwona Pasinska at the XII Encuentro Para Cinéfagos 2022 in San Cristóbal, Venezuela, or the main award in the "short film - work of art" category at the RIFF 2022 International Film Festival in Eina, Norway.
Utah Dance Film Festival is an international dance film festival, a catalyst for creative exchange between film directors and choreographers. It showcases and awards the best dance films, and hosts dance and film workshops. In 2021, another choreographic film project of the Polish Dance Theater "Toporul" received the award for "best short film" at this festival.
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