Greater the Weight, The

“The way it usually goes down is like this – the greater the weight, the better it feels. When it hurts, nothing feels better to me than hurting a bit more.” – Dana Michel We live in a world where people will fall. The film plays with the idea of falling – the heaviness and the lightness, the emotion, and the sounds associated with falling. It reflects on moments when one stumbles… by accident, on purpose. Sometimes you can get up again right away and you’re fine, and sometimes you’re not. A young woman (Dana Michel) is in a rebellious dance, at times expressing of a kind of living schizophrenia. For her the only way to properly articulate all of the rising internal feelings and questions is to dance. For this woman it means propelling her body forward and back. The texture of the dance is abrasive, even naked. It’s a violence that can excite. We are reminded in this dance-film that rough physicality can be beautiful…and quite different from the way in which violence is typically defined. “The greater the weight” mixes confrontational, intensely physical dance and music (by Ghislain Poirier) that explodes with poetry, drive and vulnerability. The aim is to deliver the impact of bodily shock, with a terse, probing intelligence. Out of the dissonance emerges a dance that is feminine, athletic, full of attitude – loud, honest, and direct. The film aspires to move viewers into a familiar yet uncomfortable place.