CHOREOGRAPHY MEDIA HONORS AWARD, L.A
June 2008
Choreography Media Honors is an international industry award (cinema, tv, commercials, short film) which celebrates "outstanding achievement" in media choreography. It is held in association with Dance Camera West Film Festival, L.A.
This year Rocamora joins Pina Bausch, Vim Vandekeybus and William Forsythe.
Gala ceremony: 13th June at the Director’s Guild of America, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.
SEE Media Honors 2008 page
IMZ DANCE SCREEN AWARD, The Hague
Nov 2007
"In category C3 "Screen choreography" (over 15 minutes) the jury selected "Horizon of Exile" as winner... (the film) explores female consciousness under extreme circumstances and beyond actual political discussions. On their journey of exile across a time - and nameless desert two women explore a never known nor asked state of consciousness of physical and mental conditions between desire and violence. Choreographed body movements, nature as a metaphor in addition with close and at the same time distanced camera watching the women´s self finding create a singular piece of art." (Jury citation)
SEE Dance Screen 2007 page
JURY SPECIAL MENTION - IL COREOGRAFO ELECTRONICO, Naples
June 2008
'Jury Special Mention' - Il Coreografo Elettronico 2008
"for sensibility to the theme of female isolation"
JURY SPECIAL MENTION - JUMPING FRAMES FESTIVAL, Hong-Kong
October 2008
"Ultimate Panel's Choice" (out of competition)
VIDEOFORMES JURY SELECTION, Clermont-Ferrand
March 2008
Horizon was selected by the jury for the 'Prix Création Vidéo'
PORLADANZA MAGAZINE, SPAIN
SUMMER 2008
“Rocamora’s bodies seem to be devoid of a centre, something apparently impossible in dance, and that is because they are focused on a feeling of both displacement and absorption: that of a presence and being which challenges otherness. In the 22 minutes of Horizon it seems as though there is no choreography, nonetheless everything is in movement, that same oscillation found in the interior journeys of films by Angelopolous, Egoyan and Tarkovski... Rocamora surprises us with a work which is boundaryless, arriving at ‘another place’, its own place, the perfect site for the distinct world of feelings to be found in Horizon.”
Ferrán Mateo
Quoted from Article: 'Gravityless Horizons' (Horizontes Ingrávidos)
TENDENCIAS DEL ARTE MAGAZINE, SPAIN
June 2008
"Isabel Rocamora has (at Loop Videoart '08) presented her dual screen installation Horizon of exile which she calls cinematic. Performer, choreographer and film director, her installation is truly impressive for its beauty, sensibility and content: its themes are exile, identity and loss. “It’s a cross genre work which presents the moving body as metaphor for journey; the voices are those of Iraqi women who are now living in London. The more choreographic scenes with women rolling on desert salt lanscapes express distilled feelings of gripping the past while being driven towards the future, as I am interested in working with states of consciousness beyond the rational”. Isabel Rocamora explains “I have always strived to be on the margins between different languages, trying to establish a new language in the work. For me the concept of an installation has to take into account spectator space experience.”
Magda Perera
Quoted from article 'Collecting conceptual art' (Coleccionando arte conceptual)
FOX NEWS (TV), LOS ANGELES, U.S
9 July 2008
"Some of the most poetic work ever seen on screen"
Christine Devine
ART-MAGAZINE.DE, GERMANY
10 - 13 May 2008
On Horizon installation at Galeria Senda (Loop Festival, Barcelona)
Go to review page (German)
EL PERIODICO, CATALUNYA
11 May 2008
Interview
"There are indeed women (creators of videoart), but if you were to ask me off the top of my head what the key videoartists are I can think of quite a few male names - says Isabel Rocamora, whose work is currently being exhibited at Senda Gallery -. Were there to be more women we could create a very different language. After a few moments reflection she starts to name: the Iranian Shirin Neshat, the Suiss Pipilotti Rist, and the Finnish Eija-Liisa Athila."
Gemma Tramullas
Quoted from 'Female presence in exhibitions. Contemporary art places women at the top of the creative map'
see full article (Spanish)
4 DANCE, CHANNEL 4
Broadcast Spring 2008
"(Horizon) presents the two most powerful characters in this programme"
Jonzi D
LUXFLUX ARTE CONTEMPORANEA MAGAZINE, ITALY
January 2008 Issue
“An original treatment of a social theme, developing an interesting research on language, was beautifully expressed by filmmaker and choreographer Isabel Rocamora. In Horizon of exile she builds an existential, emotive imaginary of exile (of Middle Eastern woman) by uniting the suggestion of place to that of experimental choreography”.
Veronica D’Auria
Quoted from article ‘Recencioni, Le cinque video-giornate di Milano’
THE VILLAGE VOICE, NY
8th Jan 2008
"Dancers in open air often look out of place, but in one of the most moving short films I saw, Isabel Rocamora's Horizon of Exile, two dancers achingly embody the testimonies of Iraqi women exiles. Wearing heavy, black-cotton dresses, whose rustling is almost the only sound, the two face a great expanse of desert to reach the border and rest in a hellish gray landscape of bubbling hot springs. Slowly rolling and twisting in the barrenness, they express with great economy both the pain of leaving and the pain of staying".
Deborah Jowitt
GUARDIAN UNLIMITED, U.K
23 Nov 2007
"One of the most successful in this emerging field (of dance for camera) is choreographer and film-maker Isabel Rocamora. Her dance film Horizon of Exile has just picked up a best film award at the Dance film festival in The Hague.
...
Rocamora positions the dancers against a desert backdrop, their movements creating a series of sculptures. The film is essentially about cultural identity and exile - but, as in ballet, the forms and the movement convey the narrative. Rocamora has a background as an anti-gravity artist, and this strong physical sense of circus-like tension runs through her work. The fluidity of the choreography also brings to mind snippets of early images of the free dancing pioneer, Isadora Duncan.
...
In the way that the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev could be scrutinised in tenderness several feet high, the muscular and emotional tensions of Rocamora's dancers give the sense of gazing on vast public sculpture in a stark natural space.
The held positions of Horizon afford a quite different sensation of viewing the body in motion than, say, parkour - or free running which draws on expressive volition of a figure through an urbanscape."
Christine Finn
see full article
RUNRIOT.COM
30 Oct 2007
"After a long wait Isabel Rocamora’s newest work is about to premier in Valparaíso, Chile...
Having seen both her previous cinematic works I can firmly say they look and feel as good as Baraka, if you get the chance to see it, you simply must.
...
My god it is sumptuous; Sparse, Minimal, Lush, so textured you can virtually Taste it, so powerful too, the interaction between the dual screen set-up is intense.
...
The piece as a whole altho only a shade over 20 min is epic, the setting is stunning in the desert and littoral of a tidal river, the sparse spoken word is powerful when it comes"
Michael Heap
see full review
NEWARK STAR LEDGER, NY
28 Dec 2007
“Horizon of Exile, a short about the tribulations of Iraqi women, follows its cast as they wind through the desert, drifting and sinking. "It's the body within the landscape," DeirdreTowers, Director of Dance on Camera NY, says.”
Robert Johnson
GREAT DANCE, U.S (greatdance.com)
19 Dec 2007
"A breath-taking film of two women journeying across a desert landscape. Testimonials of Iraqi exiles are woven into the soundtrack with Jivan Gasparyan and the voice of Surma Hamid, an Iraqi exile now living in London. A MUST SEE!"
"Horizon of Exile is a brilliant dance film; it is beautiful, lyrical, political and important"
Mairead Turner, Director South East Dance, U.K
"I have watched the film, and here is what i thought: I have not much information about the choreographic, film technical (aspects), but i understand 80 % of the film, my opinion this was very powerful film, the dancers and the place you chose, it was great, the important thing I start to cry because i saw myself exactly there. I do not know - every movement , the rejection, defender, pain, was real, I thought it was me. It did reflect my life and the pain, I loved it, I watched more than 6 times, still want to watch again, for me this film was a big reflect(ion) too, because i could not express my feeling in any way. As much as i talk to media about my life i thought there were some things missing, i think i wanted to express myself, my pain in this way the dancers did"
Surma Hamid, main interviewee, U.K - Iraq
"The film evokes stunning visual and emotional internal and external landscapes that shift between images of women being stoned, covering up their flesh, waiting and waiting, crying, being lost, being abandoned, being left. The scale of the desert landscape is austere, harsh and unforgiving and the women walk through it like reviled forgotten people who continue to believe and hope in a future. The courage to keep going against all odds is very moving and the immersion in water at the end of the film conjures up a sense of life and death simultaneously.
...
The use of the desert as set was stupendous ..The scale, the light, the crevices the water the sky and the sense of nature’s harsh beauty was wonderful to watch in every moment.
...
This dance film is a major piece of art, innovative, contemporary and relevant to wide audiences today through its theme and methodology, (it) has made a huge contribution to the role dance screen has in making work that is relevant, inspiring and easily accessible"
Sue Way, Arts Council England, South West officer
"I found your film delightful. I enjoyed the dignity you gave to your source material and its expression through the dancers' bodies. A rare thing...."
Laurie Booth, choreographer, U.K
"It is magnificently shot and I greatly appreciated the way in which the combination of the movement, the dancers, and the desert setting manage to portray the conflict with such harshness and subtlety at once"
Tal Yahas, Museum Curator and Tel Aviv Video Dance Artistic Director, Israel
"Poignant"
Sara Diamond, Founder Banff New Media Institute, President OCAD, Canada