
Speaking upon the release of ‘Bodyguard’, Black Dahlia said: “Bodyguard is a theatrical exploration of gaining a new body but your soul remains. It is a sonnet to your past physical body in this realm and the new union that will inevitably be formed. A harsh and gentle celebration of your capabilities, your limits, and your destiny.” As well as being the Director for the music video, Black Dahlia was also Producer, Art Director, Choreographer, and Concept creator for the project. Donning various characters, Black Dahlia embodies performance art and its mediums such as contortion, mime, surrealism, Dada, the avant-garde, and body horror. ‘Bodyguard’ follows Black Dahlia in various theatrical forms and her journey to transformation through reanimation that looks reminiscent of a John Waters film. It also features cameos from Melbourne-based artists, Bura Bura as Dr Barget Hower, Manda Wolf as Dr Avanti and Cong Josie as Dr Cong.
Dr Cong
Dr Avanti
Dr Barget Hower
Dr Speculus
Watcher
5.0A concert film documenting Sheena Ringo's performance at the Osaka-jō Hall.
8.3A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.
4.0Sex as dance and comedy: in Progressive Touch Portnoy studies and expands the relationship between sex, choreography and composing music. He introduces complex compositions from progressive rock and math metal during sex, thereby combating the ostensible simplification of rhythm in human movements and gestures. A group of actors perform the new moves in three slapstick-like scenes. Worth trying at home.
8.8LUZIA takes you to an imaginary Mexico, like in a waking dream, where light (“luz” in Spanish) quenches the spirit and rain (“lluvia”) soothes the soul. With a surrealistic series of grand visual surprises and breathtaking acrobatic performances, LUZIA cleverly brings to the stage multiple places, faces and sounds of Mexico taken from both tradition and modernity.
10.0A conceptual live concert by Diamanda Galás, "Plague Mass" continues the themes of the suffering and misery of the infected found in her "Masque of the Red Death" trilogy.
0.0A teenager is resurrected as a plant-headed zombie, searching to find his past happiness and humanity. How long will it all last though, knowing that life may change again when the sun goes away?
10.0A brief history of Talking Heads (and how they got here!)
0.0Thesis at the University of Television and Film in Munich. In this milestone in film history, pet owners compete against their pets in a fictional TV show.
7.2A fairy godmother helps a princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry her father.
7.0Gutter punks shouldn't play with dead things...or have sex with them. When Sarah (Tiffany Stinky) screws a corpse in the local funeral home she gets the "ROT," a deadly, flesh-eating virus that soon infects her punk rock boyfriend Muzzy (Billy Scam). Realizing they are doomed to rot alive together, Sarah and Muzzy set out on a nihilistic rampage, spreading ultra-violence and the virus in their chaotic wake. As the plague of rotting flesh rages out of control, the FBI, secretive government agencies and Dr. Robert Olsen (Joel D. Wynkoop), the deranged scientist who created the "ROT", become involved, making everything far worse for the citizens of Sunnyville, Florida.
8.5The stage emulates life and compresses it, setting free skills learned over lifetimes in brief but dazzling displays for the amusement and judgment of others. For the performers, it is the ultimate risk, and some will rise while others must fall. Nowhere is this truer than at the Seisho Music Academy, where music, dance and real weapons all come into play in the creation of the next great Star. Karen and Hikari’s destinies have been linked since a childhood promise, but their journeys here have taken very different paths. Now, after Hikari leaves, Karen must discover who she is without her opposite, while Hikari must rediscover her own course. Nor are they the only girls who must reassess and change if they want to achieve their dreams, as the dance, magic, and swordplay continue!
5.0An anthology of surreal films by Patrick McGuinn featuring Vincent, a puppet who is obsessed with Twinkies and pasta.
0.0On the liner notes to Freak Out!, the 1967 debut album by Zappa's original band the Mothers of Invention, Zappa listed some seventy-two names on the liner notes and cited them as influences. The Freak Out List intends to explore who these artists are and what influence they had on Zappa's music. This listing encompasses all sorts of music, from classical composer Edgar Varese to R&B star Johnny "Guitar" Watson to jazzman Eric Dolphy to flamenco guitarist Sabicas. You can hear for instance, how the esoteric classical influence of Varese shaped Zappa's long-form epics like "Lumpy Gravy" or how Dolphy's instrumental prowess led Zappa to incorporate jazz-fusion on albums like Weasels Ripped My Flesh! (1970), which even included a song titled "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue." Interviews with various Zappa biographers and music historians as well as musicians George Duke, Ian Underwood, and Don Preston, all of whom played in the Mothers at one time or another, help add additional context.
5.7One morning, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen awoke from a dream that told him to take to the sky. Stockhausen envisioned four helicopters swirling in the clouds, with each of a quartet’s members tucked inside his own chopper, communicating through headsets, stringing away in sync to the rotor-blade motors. He immediately set forth to make that dream a reality. In 1995, Dutch film director Scheffer followed Stockhausen in the days leading up to the premiere performance of his Helicopter String Quartet in Amsterdam. The resulting film offers a rare glimpse of Stockhausen as he patiently dictates every agonizingly detailed measure to the Arditti Quartet.
8.2Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger was a unique figure in post-war American culture. His iconic short films are characterised by a mystical-symbolic visual language and phantasmagorical-sensual opulence that underscores the medium’s transgressive potential. Anger’s work fundamentally shaped the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s subcultures, the visual lexicon of pop and music videos and queer iconography. These nine films form the basis of Anger’s reputation as one of the most influential pioneers of avant-garde film and video art. Fireworks, 1947, 14 min Puce Moment, 1949, 6 min Rabbit's Moon, 1950/1971, 16 min Eaux d'Artifice, 1953, 13 min Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954, 37 min Scorpio Rising, 1964, 28 min Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, 3 min Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, 11 min Lucifer Rising, 1981, 27 min
7.3Urgh! A Music War is a British film released in 1982 featuring performances by punk rock, new wave, and post-punk acts, filmed in 1980. Among the artists featured in the movie are Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Magazine, The Go-Go's, Toyah Willcox, The Fleshtones, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, X, XTC, Devo, The Cramps, Oingo Boingo, Dead Kennedys, Gary Numan, Klaus Nomi, Wall of Voodoo, Pere Ubu, Steel Pulse, Surf Punks, 999, UB40, Echo & the Bunnymen and The Police. These were many of the most popular groups on the New Wave scene; in keeping with the spirit of the scene, the film also features several less famous acts, and one completely obscure group, Invisible Sex, in what appears to be their only public performance.
7.2Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
5.0Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.
7.5This video release by Depeche Mode features an entire concert from their 2001 Exciter Tour, shot at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy on 9 and 10 October 2001.
