Private Project

AT WATER'S EDGE

Featuring mesmerizing queer dance in watery coves and ocean edges, AT WATER'S EDGE is a short dance film by Emmy Award-winning transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey.

AT WATER'S EDGE juxtaposes trans and queer bodies in motion with water -- mutable, flowing, and ever-transforming.

This short is part of a series of dance films created as part of Sean Dorsey Dance's THE LOST ART OF DREAMING project. (Other films in the series include PLACE/PORTAL and SEEK/AFTER.)

"Stunning...These films are exquisite, intimate, and radiate with Dorsey’s gesture-rich choreography."
(Bay Times)

"Gorgeous"
(48 Hills)

Dorsey has been awarded an Emmy Award ("Sean Dorsey Dance: Dreaming Trans & Queer Futures), five Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, and is a Doris Duke Artist and a Dance/USA Artist Fellow.
Dorsey is widely recognized as the USA's first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer.

Dorsey's THE LOST ART OF DREAMING is an invitation to embrace expansive imagination, reconnect with longing, connect with joy and pleasure, and propel ourselves toward loving Futures.

This series of short films featuring choreography and performance by the groundbreaking all-LGBTQ Sean Dorsey Dance company -- and is an invitation to reclaim, conjure, and manifest joy, pleasure, well-being, freedom, love, connection, and liberation.

The series features 6 short films: AT WATER'S EDGE, SEEK/AFTER, PLACE/PORTAL, SPELL/DREAM, UNFOLD/INTO, and SEEK/AFTER. To view additional short films in this series, please contact us for review links.

  • Sean Dorsey
    Director
    SEEK/AFTER, PLACE/PORTAL
  • Sean Dorsey
    Key Cast
    "self"
    Sense 8 (Netflix)
  • Nol Simonse
    Key Cast
    "self"
  • Sean Dorsey
    CHOREOGRAPHY
  • Anomie Belle
    ORIGINAL MUSIC
  • Annalise Ophelian
    CINEMATOGRAPHY
    Looking for Leia, MAJOR!, The Whistle
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Music Video, Short, Other
  • Genres:
    dance, dance film, modern dance, contemporary dance, dance-theater, trans, transgender, lgbtq, lgbt, queer
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 31 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital UHD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • PrideArts Chicago Film Festival
    Chicago, Illinois
    United States
    March 14, 2022
    World premiere
    Official selection
  • Queer Musicals, Dance, and Music Video Fest
    Chicago, IL
    United States
    April 1, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Translations: Seattle Trans Film Festival
    Seattle
    United States
    May 5, 2022
    Official selection
  • FRAMELINE San Francisco LGBTQ+ Film Festival
    San Francisco
    United States
    June 20, 2022
    Official selection
  • Louisiana Rainbow: LGBT+ Film Festival
    New Orleans
    United States
    June 25, 2022
    New Orleans Premiere
    TransVideo Filmmaker - Finalist
  • Cinema Diverse: The Palm Springs LGBTQ+ Film Festival
    Palm Springs
    United States
    September 24, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Inspired Dance Film Festival
    West End, Queensland
    Australia
    October 19, 2022
    Australian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • McMinnville Short Film Festival
    McMinnville, Oregon
    United States
    February 23, 2023
    Official selection
  • Berlin Short Film Festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    January 25, 2023
    European premiere, German premiere
    Best Experimental Short - Festival Director's Award
  • Nice International Film Festival
    Nice
    France
    May 15, 2023
    French Premiere
    Official selection
  • San Francisco Transgender Film Festival
    San Francisco, CA
    United States
    November 9, 2023
    Official selection
  • San Francisco Dance Film Festival
    San Francisco, California
    United States
    October 8, 2023
    Official selection
  • Some Dance Screen Fest
    Riverside, California
    United States
    December 17, 2022
    Official selection
  • London Super Shorts Film Festival
    London
    United Kingdom
    December 4, 2023
    Official selection
  • Shorts On Tap - London
    London
    United Kingdom
    November 15, 2023
    United Kingdom premiere, London premiere
    Official selection
Director Biography - Sean Dorsey

Sean Dorsey is a San Francisco-based dance filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, educator and activist. He has been awarded an Emmy Award ("Sean Dorsey Dance: Dreaming Trans & Queer Futures"), five Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, and is a Doris Duke Artist and a Dance/USA Artist Fellow.

Widely recognized as the USA's first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer, Dorsey's films and live performances have toured to more than 30 cities across the US and internationally – and taught with his explicitly trans-positive pedagogy in more than 35 cities.

A longtime social practice artist, Dorsey creates his works over 2-3 years in deep relationship with/in community. Dorsey’s dances are powerful explorations of human experience – a fusion of full-throttle dance, luscious partnering, intimate storytelling and theater. Highly physical, accessible, rooted in story, and danced with precision and guts and deep humanity, Dorsey’s works have been praised as “exquisite…poignant and important” (BalletTanz), “trailblazing” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “evocative, compelling, elegant” (LA Weekly).

As a teaching artist, Dorsey leads workshops, classes and DREAM LABS with a trans-positive pedagogy – and centers and celebrates gender non-conforming and trans bodies, voices and aesthetics.

Dorsey has been awarded support by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Dance/USA, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, California Arts Council, Creative Work Fund, Fleishhacker Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation and Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation.

Dorsey has been awarded commissions from American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Dance Place (Washington DC), Queer Cultural Center (San Francisco), 7 Stages (Atlanta), Maui Arts & Cultural Center (Maui), Velocity Dance Center (Seattle) Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles), The Theater Offensive (Boston), Links Hall (Chicago), Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission and James Irvine Foundation.

Sean Dorsey Dance’s project THE LOST ART OF DREAMING investigates and imagines expansive Futures.

The project includes a live performance (now on a 2-year, international tour) and 6 dance film shorts: AT WATER'S EDGE, SEEK/AFTER, PLACE/PORTAL, SPELL/DREAM, and UNFOLD/INTO.

www.SeanDorseyDance.com

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

THE LOST ART OF DREAMING project is

a spell
a danced invocation
a loving invitation to
reclaim, remember, re-connect, conjure, co-create and manifest OUR BIRTHRIGHT:

JOY
PLEASURE
WELL-BEING
FREEDOM
LOVE
CONNECTION
LIBERATION