“Beating [Битье]”: A police officer tells an elderly couple where not to dance; a beatboxing contest ensues. Onlookers look on.
“Nosebleed [Кровотечение из носу]”: The trip from Kazan to Sviyazhsk, excerpts from the Prokofiev-Eisenstein letters, a passage from the Kazan section of Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible score, static, the threat of a nosebleed. A high-concept not-dance of uncertain character.
“Breakneck [Сломя голову]”: The Russian TV show Odna Minuta and the ballet Anyuta (adapted from Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck”).
The first in the Linguistic Breakdown series: “Breakdown [Поломка].” It seems like every night I’ve spent in Russia I have wound up watching a terrible exercise show devoted to breakdancing. Then I made a short movie about it.
(All subsequent movies take up the theme of dancing and/or television, unless they’re “Meat House [Меат Хоусе],” in which case their theme is Meat House.)
