Experiencing Interruptions?

...A día de hoy ("...as of today")

Filmed at the house of English composer, Frederick Delius, "...A día de hoy" (...As of today) explores the residue left in spaces that have been witness to the life and creative geography of an artist. The movement, composition and editing all respond to the history and cultural memory that remains in said spaces despite the passage of time. The film explores how all those in the space, including the camera, are affected by all it contains.

In the words of choreographer and filmmaker Victoria Marks:

This dance for camera follows a young woman across a field and into a deserted house where she wanders nostalgically, touching furniture, languishing against the frame of a door. She gestures, spiraling her arms. One image dissolves slowly into another, like seeing through screens. She caresses a harpsichord, walking her fingers along the keys, as though lost in thought. She slips out of the house back into the misty world. A dream or a memory: something has been lost. The film feels to me like a romance of time, and absence.

  • Niurca Marquez
    Director
    Abandoned Transits
  • Nu Flamenco Collaborative
    Producer
    Abandoned Transits
  • Damaris Ferrer
    Key Cast
    N/A
  • Pequeño Vals Vienes by Raul Fernandez and Silvia Perez Cruz
    Music
  • Niurca Marquez
    Editing
    Tattoo (2013)
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student, Other
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 46 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 30, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    3,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    Other
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • Screen Dance Miami
    Miami, FL
    January 23, 2016
    World Premiere
  • Jacksonville Dance Film Festival
    Jacksonville, FL
    April 30, 2016
  • Flying Frame Film Festival

    United States
Director Biography - Niurca Marquez

Niurca Márquez has a wide range, as a creator and performer in flamenco and other contemporary dance forms. In addition to dancing and choreographing for various Flamenco companies, she has also worked in other dance forms such as Afro-Cuban and Contemporary Dance with choreographers like Susana Yamuchi (Brazil). Her work has been commissioned by Espacio Vivo Endanza (Seville), Next at 19th (Miami), the Miami Dade County Auditorium, FUNDarte Inc. (Miami), among others and presented on various stages in Europe and the US. She conducts workshops internationally that integrate elements of tradition, awareness, improvisation and organic movement of the “bata de cola” (train dress) and other traditional elements of flamenco.

Marquez has worked tirelessly on presenting new works that shed light on the female body and its links to notions of beauty in flamenco within a contemporary framework. With a rare combination of physicality and intellect and a deep understanding of her work’s historical placement and potential implications within a contemporary dance setting, her work examines the many intersections of tradition and vanguard to create new languages and expressions embedded in flamenco but informed by contemporary practices in dance and theater. A certified Feldenkrais practitioner, she infuses choreographic practice with this approach to make flamenco more accessible outside its cultural context. Her work was recently featured in an article in Anda Flamenco Magazine (Germany) and Fokus, a publication of the Feldenkrais Association in Vienna.

In 2009 she became part of an international movement that is addressing extended forms in flamenco and reclaiming the art form’s liaisons with political and social discourse. That same year she was invited to perform original choreography at the first-ever Festival of Experimental Flamenco (Flamenc Empiric – Barcelona), as well as, the International Dance Residency at Art Omi (NY). The following year she debuted “Sevilla Mon Amour” with contemporary flamenco composer Jose Luis Rodriguez (2010 Biennial of Flamenco in Seville). In 2011 they debuted their second collaboration “Intimate Spaces” in the Miami On-Stage Series. Other works include “Of Essence and Time” (2012-2013) and “Resonancias” (2014). She has been an Associate Artist in Residence with Wally Cardona, Liz Lerman and Victoria Marks at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and was later invited by Lerman to work with her as part of the artists involved in “Must Do Now,” a collaboration with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women.

In 2014 she was the Community Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts where she completed the third installment of The History House, an interdisciplinary project that is part live arts, part research experiment and has thus far taken place in Huelva (Spain), Miami and New Smyrna Beach (Florida). In it, she collects local history, personal narratives from the community and the town’s natural geography to create a work that examines cultural memory. To date, the project has lead to the dance for film “Abandoned Transits” (Huelva), a staged performance (Miami), and a performative installation (New Smyrna Beach) in a 100 year old, three-story house that challenged audiences to create their own personal performance experience. “Abandoned Transits” has screened in various cities including, Miami, Trinidad/Tobago and Lisbon (Portugal). Her most recent dance for film, “…A dia de hoy” premiered at Screen Dance Miami 2016 and will screen next month at the Jacksonville Dance Film Festival.

Marquez is also an informed and articulate writer and was recently published in Flamenco on the Global Stage (MacFarllan Press). In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious Gillman Fellowship from the Gillman Foundation (NY) to pursue her research on hybrid choreographic practices in flamenco. She was recently commissioned by “Grass Stains,” a site-specific performance series, for a new work to premiere in Fall 2016.

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Director Statement

My goal as an artist is to create performance experiences that examine the many intersections of tradition and vanguard to create new languages and expressions embedded in flamenco but informed by contemporary practices in dance, film and theater. My work is based on a deconstruction of traditional flamenco aesthetic and technique, and is constantly informed by collaborations with other artists of various disciplines. It is a flamenco that is syncretic, displaced, infused with cross-cultural underpinnings and is based on a somatic/shamanic approach to movement that although rooted in a style, remains flexible. For this, I draw on my Cuban roots, my experiences growing up in the mélange that is Miami, my experiences living abroad and the very deep and layered roots of flamenco.

Drawing from this tradition adds depth and context, but as an artist and researcher, I feel obligated to take the process a step further and question the implications of our search for true dialogue in contemporary society from a much more raw, radical and sensual/sensorial place. In my art-making, I return to a place of self-expression where performances are shared experiences, open to all who are willing to step into the fold. My current work includes staged performances, site-specific works, community engagement and advocacy, and dance films that deal with the female body and its links to notions of beauty and cultural memory and how it is passed down. Being in the middle of such diverse experiences and approaches gives me a unique position to bring the flamenco community out of its insular and self-protective spaces and create dialogue with the larger dance community.