Director & Editor: Eric Nordstrom
Assistant editor: Ian Lucero
Music: Luke Wyland

A seminal figure in dance, Simone Forti's groundbreaking work emerged with the very start of postmodern dance, offering a vital counterpoint to established dance traditions. The film, Standing on Gold: Simone Forti, aims to introduce Forti's influential work and unique creative process to a new generation of dance artists and a wider audience. This film draws upon interviews conducted with Simone at her home in Los Angeles, as well as footage from a 2013 workshop she led in Portland, Oregon. The footage from these two sources provides much of the content for this film, exploring the workshop and the development of its exercises. However, this represents only a fraction of Simone's full story.

At the heart of Simone's practice is a profound sense exploration—a capacity for the body to be a fundamental tool for creative research. This approach deeply resonates with my own artistic interests and lineage. Simone embodies a remarkable and enduring career, profoundly influencing my creative endeavors and life at large, as well as those of so many others.

This film was created in part with the generous support of the Regional Arts & Culture Council of Portland, Oregon.

Running a production company dedicated to providing local artists excellent video services, I specialize in filming and editing dance and theater to create promotional materials, archival materials, work samples, and fundraisers. 

Past video clients include Portland Opera, White Bird, BodyVox, Conduit Dance Inc., Tere Mathern Dance, Portland Taiko, Gracewood Studio, Reed College, Willamette University, Portland State University, and Portland Community College.

Working with Reed College, I have edited the videos currently featured on the Dance Department's homepage. Additionally, I have worked with Reed Dance Department faculty member Carla Mann, as a videographer for her project Portraits. 

Commissioned by Portland Community College, I worked with students, staff, and faculty to create a dance on film. This project includes directing a three-camera shoot, coordinating with a choreographer and lighting designer, and editing the final film. A documentary about the making of this dance on film was made by the PCC Sylvania Media Department as part of a wonderful collaboration with the Dance Program.

The "Dance for Camera" documentary, about the making of dance on film can be seen to the left. Directed and edited by Eric Nordstrom. Choreography by Heidi Dyer and performed by students at PCC Sylvania. 

Full interviews and performance footage, featured in Moving History: Portland Contemporary Dance Past and Present, are available online through the Portland State University, Special Collections: Portland Dance Archives. We invite you to explore the rich history of dance in Portland and learn more about the many artists represented.

To add your documentation of Portland dance related interview and performance footage to the Portland Dance Archives, please contact Special Collections at the Portland State University Library (specialcollections@pdx.edu) or use the recording submission form.

Director & Editor: Eric Nordstrom
Assistant Editor: Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies
Music: Ben Martens

Moving History: Portland Contemporary Dance Past and Present, has been two years in the making. Having danced in Portland, Oregon for a decade—with Oslund+Co., Keith V. Goodman, Tere Mathern, Linda K. Johnson, and POV Dance, among others—I feel like, before this film project, my knowledge of local dance history was limited. As a city, Portland has recently seen a lot of new people with an interest in dance arrive here, and through their own practices, they are becoming a part of a rich genealogy of Portland dance. I wanted to make this film for the Portland dance community—the dancers, choreographers, technicians, critics, and audience members— as an invitation to connect with the past, and to invite relative newcomers to recognize and learn about this history of Portland dance and to honor those who built Portland’s contemporary dance scene.

In gathering the materials to make this film, I have worked in the archives at Reed College, Portland State University and the City of Portland, which both contain a trove of documents in the forms of photographs of past performances, press releases, course rosters, and other primary sources from when both colleges were central to the dance community in Portland, and participated in the shaping of Portland Dance. 

The most information has come from my one-on-one interviews with over thirty prominent figures from the history of contemporary dance in Portland. Many of the artists with whom I spoke had their own archives—old VHS tapes of their performances, often relegated to closets or basements. Part of the goal of this film is to take this material, preserve it, and to centralize it. This is one part of the film about which I am especially excited. 

With this film, my intention is to do three things:
1. Gather information about Portland dance history through these interviews and this archival footage.
2. Preserve this information by recording the interviews and converting artists’ VHS videos into a digital format.
3. Coordinate with the PSU to create the Portland State University, Special Collections: Portland Dance Archives to house footage of the seminal performances referenced in the film, and some of the interviews in their entirety. Available online at http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pda.

I created Moving History: Portland Contemporary Dance Past and Present to explore my own lineage of dance in this city. This film is an effort to begin to capture and preserve our city’s rich history and to create a call for others to preserve their own lineage within their own performance practices. This film offers one window onto the rich history of dance in Portland. The voices in this film are just a few of the many who have contributed to this history. Thank you to everyone who offered their experiences and perspectives.

This film was created with in part with generous support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Ronni Lacroute.

Screenings of Moving History: Portland Contemporary Dance Past and Present
June 16, 2018 at Performance Works NW, Portland, OR: webpage
December 9, 2017 at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR: webpage
October 21, 2017 at Dance Studies Association, Columbus, OH (excerpt)
October 13, 2017 at Northwest Screendance Exposition, Eugene, OR
June 13, 2017 at Portland State University
May 21, 2017 at University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
April 6, 2017 at Whitsell Auditorium, Portland Art Museum
June 25, 2016 at Performance Works NW, Portland, OR: webpage

Press for Moving History: Portland Contemporary Dance Past and Present
April 03, 2017 Portland Tribune by Lyndsey Hewitt: ‘MOVING HISTORY’ LOOKS AT DANCE IN PORTLAND

APRIL 5, 2017 Oregon ArtsWatch by Jamuna Chiarini: DanceWatch Weekly: Zipping through dance history