Dorothy Kristin Hanna has directed over 200 Avante Grade, poetic and improvisational dance performances and twelve films that fit into the words, experimental narratives. Each frame could exist as a digital painting. (website: Dorothykristinhanna.com

Dorothy Kristin Hanna, has been accepted into the world of film through the AVIFF Cannes Catalogue, Louisiana Film Prize Top 20, Cinema on the Bayou, HG Shorts Channel, for film. Her awards in Louisiana have been that of five Multi-Disciplinary Fellowships and one Dance Fellowship.

Ms. Hanna was born into art, like a fish in water. As she began in life, redesigning her food every evening, on her actual dinner plate. The designs began to teach her at a very young age about the distance between two shapes and how colors play off each other.As a result of this, her art began to have an abstraction to it,

Nightly dreams, then became a form of seeing moving paintings, of free spirited performances. Some developed into full length productions, that were rehearsed for months and produced on the stage. All were documented and recorded in chronilogical order. Her main Classical Ballet teacher from the Royal Academy of Dance, strongly opposed her work and told, her to approach choreography in a more realistic way.

Ms. Hanna's dreams, began to take over her waking reality. A sign out front in a dream, gave her the name of the company, for it was outside the red curtain. A VISUAL SOUND AND MOVEMENT CO. was the name on a sign in her dream.

Her mission to paint, came from her first painting that she ever approached with watercolor. The painting was painted on silk and took her through the night with no sleep. It was like a calling from the Universe, that gave her clear knowledge that she could not stop painting until she had produced 1,000 paintings. She exceeded that dream, many years ago with many thousands.

Attending films fascinated Dorothy. There was a huge difference between the audience of a film and a live performance. A live show, could only be seen the way it was presented once. It could never be recreated. A film, can be held in a tiny drive or a link, that could actually reach all the people in the Universe. After hundreds of stage productions, she ventured into writing a screenplay. That was the hook that took her into the world of film. it was different and such a new idea to explore.

Ms. Hanna dove into the film world, with freedom to create any image, idea, word, but soon learned, it is composed of many parts. The idea that all of the components, could be one encapsulated, forever in cyberspace, was totally mind blowing, to her personal drive to do art. she immediately strived to make the impossible, possible, the possible, easy and the easy, elegant. Making film easy, could be the same as painting, you just have to dive into the practice of making film.

Now her approach has slowed down, as she studies the neuroplasticity of the brain, to open itself to a more contemporary world of filmmaking as art. Opening our body/mind and letting go into a field of meditative explorations, could benefit human consciousness, to understand that the field of creativity is endless and new ideas are capable of pushing the edge of filmmaking.
"Life is like an oyster, you must work to crack it open, to receive the pearl it longs to give you."
quote: John Howe