What is creativity? Can a person tap into their own creative powers? In this wacky and irreverent film, Alexander Ekman (whose own epically creative A Swan Lake was the subject of 2017’s Rare Birds) explores these questions and more. His investigation begins with the choreographer’s version of the blank slate—an empty white room—and a playful attempt to come up with movement ideas: Anyone for a game of tennis with a watermelon? A bit of dancing with a dog? Spa time? But the nature of creativity proves elusive, and Ekman turns for answers to everyone from neuroscientists and psychologists to artists like Marina Abramovic, filmmaker Lone Scherfig, and choreographers Mats Ek and Ohad Naharin.

SCREENING WITH

Ekman’s Concise Guide to Natural Movement

Choreographer Alexander Ekman and his favorite filmmaker, T.M. Rives (Rare Birds), created this short film for the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, laying out five rules to be tested, bent, and broken on the way to creating a dance.

T.M. Rives. 2018. 9 m. NR. US. English. San Francisco Dance Film Festival.