"12 heavy things"

My film is inspired by the low-budget, minimalist European Dogme 95 film manifesto, and then, across the Atlantic Ocean--out to the Pacific, American West Coast--artist Miranda July’s Zen, queer, punk theater and sculptures. All these solo clips of my dancing were shot during the global Pandemic, abiding by such limited dance confines, going back to April 2020. Originally, I created “12 heavy things” based off a film prompt in a Self-Portrait Video workshop led virtually by Iu-Hui Chua, a staff member with the Tamalpa Institute, the recently-deceased Anna Halprin’s graduate school and dance space that powerfully bridges traditional dance theater with the psychosomatic training of movement-based Expressive Arts therapies. I completed the film for Cinedanza this summer, illustrating a narrative that combines autobiography, ancestral voices, postmodern dance, gothic Butoh, and a cinema of immediacy.

  • Tina Zoccoli Mayers
    Director
    Queer Butoh 18, Bergen Dance Makers
  • Tina Zoccoli Mayers
    Writer
    Stanford University, thesis advisor: Franco Moretti, Verso press.
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    8 minutes 44 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 23, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Tina Zoccoli Mayers

Tinó Zoccoli-Mayers (they/them; s/he) first performed professionally with The Washington Ballet Studio Company in 2004-2005. As an undergraduate at Stanford University '10, they transitioned into modern dance and performed intergenerational, environmental, site-specific scores with the West Coast pioneer, Anna Halprin. Though sidelined from dance by mental illness and addiction relapses, Tinó graduated studying Modern Thought and Literature and was awarded for their honors thesis on Postcolonial Marxist theory, French existentialism and West African Sufist literature. Now, s/he is blessed to be in community-based recovery, speaking as a mental health and LGBTQIA+ advocate in the NJ/NYC area, while teaching yoga in local hospitals and rehabs. Tinó loves exploring postmodern, Afro-Caribbean, and environmental dancing. S/he is deeply grateful to study Japanese Butoh theater in NYC with Vangeline, who was initiated by many of the founders of this gothic, sacred Japanese art form.

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Note:

Music, excerpts from:
original flute and organ compositions by Mark Murray and Joe Rose;
Tash Sultana's "Jungle"