nel shelby – Page 3

The Dancing Literate Project

February 21, 2014 by 4dancers

by Nel Shelby

I’m amazed by Sumi Clements and Taryn Vander Hoop of Summation Dance. I started filming for them when they first started their dance company, and I was blown away by how driven and organized they were off the bat. We continued to film and edit their dance videos together and formed a really wonderful working relationship. I really respect what they continue to put out there choreographically and in their ideas of how to present dance.

Their Dancing Literate Project features performances by multiple emerging or established artists, curated by Summation Dance. The program was made to offer insight into the choreographic process and provide space for the audience to engage with the companies firsthand through Q&As with leaders in the dance world, a mini-lecture on “What to Look For” in dance and a free performance and class for kids in local public schools.

Ben Richards and Ashli Bickford filmed their most recent installment of the Dancing Literate Project at Judson Memorial Church for Nel Shelby Productions. Take a look:

Contributor Nel Shelby, Founder and Principal of Nel Shelby Productions, is deeply dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through documentation of live performances, fully edited marketing reels, live-stream capture, and documentaries and films that encapsulate the essence of nonprofit organizations.

Her New York City-based video production company has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients including American Ballet Theater II, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Gallim Dance, Gotham Arts, Kate Weare and Company, Keigwin + Company, Monica Bill Barnes Company, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Wendy Whelan and many more. She has filmed performances at venues throughout the greater New York area including The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, St. Mark’s Church and Judson Church, to name a few.

For the past eight years, Nel has served as Festival Videographer for the internationally celebrated Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Each season at the Pillow, Nel’s responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, managing two dance videography interns and an apprentice, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of filming dance.

She now also serves as Resident Videographer at the Vail International Dance Festival where she spent her first summer creating five short dance documentary films about the festival in addition to documenting its events and performances. Her longer-form, half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013.

This year, she is creating four short films for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature. In 2012, she collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance to create a short film titled “Folie a Deux,” which was selected and screened at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City. Nel’s videos for the New Jersey Hall of Fame were shown to an audience of 2000 people, and she is currently editing a dance documentary featuring Nejla Y. Yatkin that she filmed for three-and-a-half weeks in Central America in 2010.Nel has a long personal history with movement – she has a B.A. in dance and is a certified Pilates instructor. She continues to train with world-renowned Master Teachers Romana Krysnowska and Sari Pace, original students of Joseph Pilates. In addition to her dance degree, Nel holds a B.S. in broadcast video. She often collaborates with her wonderful husband, dance photographer (and fellow 4dancers contributor) Christopher Duggan on creative projects with dancers in New York City and beyond. They live with their beautiful daughter Gracie in Manhattan.

Dance Promo Video: Dance Education Lab Open House

December 15, 2013 by 4dancers

by Nel Shelby

I absolutely love working with Dance Education Lab (DEL)! This video shows off their amazing Open House with David Dorfman, Randi Sloan, Jody Arnhold and other top names in the dance world focused on the power of dance education. One of our dance video editors Ashli Bickford created this video for DEL.

Jody Arnhold is such an advocate for dance education. When I’m in Jody’s presence I feel like the power and importance of dance education is seeping from her bones. She has such a clear passion, and she collaborates with the best dance artists possible to help her express it.

I’d hear Ashli laughing out loud as she was listening through her headphones to what the dance educators were talking about while she edited. There’s a lot of joy in this video and you can feel it.

Dance Education Laboratory Open House Workshop from Nel Shelby on Vimeo.

Filming “Where Women Don’t Dance”

November 15, 2013 by 4dancers

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by Nel Shelby

Four years ago, I was invited by choreographer Nejla Y. Yatkin to follow her dance company NY2 Dance on tour in Central America. Our daughter Gracie was only 15 months old, and I was ready to say no – that I couldn’t take this on right now, but something told me there was something too special about this opportunity to pass up.So I packed my bags and left Gracie home with Christopher. I filmed hours and hours of performances, workshops, site-specific works and personal interviews during the tour, and the more I filmed, the more I realized that this story we were telling was bigger than we ever imagined. It wasn’t documenting performance or experience on tour – it was documenting Nejla’s personal story of strength and perseverance in her culture and career. We’ve held on to the footage for far too long, and it’s time to make this film. Where Women Don’t Dance is a truly inspiring story. It translates beyond the personal, beyond the dances performed on stage. In many ways, this documentary is a contribution to a more serious conversation about the ways women face restrictions in full expression near and far.In a time when politicians, business leaders, news outlets and more and more women are openly discussing how to deal with glass ceilings, achieve equal pay for equal work and find balance professionally, spiritually and personally at work and at home, we need to finish this film and add to the discourse. So we’re working on it!!

In our film, Nejla opens up about her personal passion for dance and the conflicts it has posed within her family and community. Born to Turkish parents in Berlin, Nejla and her family were expected to honor their roots and culture through their everyday actions. Encouraged by her parents, she studied Turkish folk dance at a very young age. Folk dance was a way for her to connect to her heritage. They didn’t realize it was also an entryway into the wider dance world – a realm where she learned to truly express herself. At the age of 14, Nejla started studying with two dance teachers from New York City. They changed her life as they introduced her to new ways of moving. (How many of us have had dance teachers that have changed our lives? I’m pretty sure we all relate to this part!!) But contemporary styles of dance would not be received well by her parents, and performance was out of the question. It is considered a sin in her culture for women to dance in public. So Nejla continued to study but was forced to hide this part of her training and her life from everyone she knew.

I invite you to watch our trailer and learn more about how we’re raising the money to make this film a reality. Please help us spread the word about this beautiful film. We can’t wait to share it with you!

Where Women Don’t Dance: My Next Documentary Project from Nel Shelby on Vimeo.

Her New York City-based video production company has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients, and she works with an ever-wider variety of dance artists each year in her role as the Festival Videographer at Jacob’s Pillow and as Resident Videographer at the Vail International Dance Festival. Her half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013. She collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance to create a short film titled “Folie a Deux,” which was selected and screened at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City.

Nel has a B.A. in dance, a B.S. in broadcast video and is a certified Pilates instructor. She often collaborates with her wonderful husband, dance photographer (and fellow 4dancers contributor) Christopher Duggan on creative projects with dancers in New York City and beyond. They live with their beautiful daughter Gracie in Manhattan.

Finis: Brian Brooks And Run Don’t Run

October 31, 2013 by 4dancers

by Christopher Duggan

I’ve known Brian Brooks for a few years now, and we’ve become closer and closer friends through filming with Nel Shelby Productions for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature, photographing his work at The Joyce, Dance From the Heart by Dancers Responding to AIDS and his company’s performances at Jacob’s Pillow…

It’s always exciting to see what he has in store for his dancers, and I was looking forward to photographing his dress rehearsal for the premiere of Run Don’t Run for weeks.

Brian Brooks Moving Company performed Run Don’t Run at BAM Fisher in Brooklyn. It’s a great new theater and the dance’s set design was an exciting feature to photograph. Philip Trevino designed the set. He’s a good fiend of ours. We’ve worked with him MANY times.

Another good friend Jo-anne Lee has danced with the Brian Brooks Moving Company for 11 years. This was her last performance with the company, so it was really special to photograph her in Run Don’t Run.

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Contributor Christopher Duggan is a wedding and dance photographer in New York City, the Berkshires and beyond. Duggan has been the Festival Photographer for Jacob’s Pillow Dance since 2006. In this capacity, and as a respected New York-based dance photographer, he has worked with renowned choreographers and performers of international acclaim as well as upstarts in the city’s diverse performance scene.

He photographs dancers in the studio and in performance, for promotional materials, portraits and press, and he often collaborates with his wife, Nel Shelby, and her Manhattan-based dance film and video editing company Nel Shelby Productions (nelshelby.com). Together, they have documented dance at performances from New York City to Vail International Dance Festival.

Christopher Duggan Photography also covers the finest wedding venues in the Metropolitan and Tri-State areas, in Massachusetts and the Berkshires, and frequently travels to destination weddings.

His photographs appear in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Knot, Destination I Do, Photo District News, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Dance Magazine, and Munaluchi Bridal, among other esteemed publications and popular dance and wedding blogs. One of his images of Bruce Springsteen was added to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his dance photography has been exhibited at The National Museum of Dance and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

His Natural Light Studio (http://www.christopherduggan.com/portfolio/natural-light-studio-jacobs-pillow-photography/) at Jacob’s Pillow is his most ambitious photography project to date – check out his blog to see more portraits of dance artists in his pop-up photo studio on the Pillow grounds.

Dance As Tribute

October 21, 2013 by 4dancers

I’m thrilled to introduce our newest contributor to 4dancers – dance videographer Nel Shelby. Nel has captured some amazing dance footage over the years, including many spectacular performances at Jacob’s Pillow, and Wendy Whelan’s work on “Restless Creature”… and Nel is also married to our dance photography contributor, the talented Christopher Duggan…

Please join me in welcoming her to 4dancers–we feel lucky to have her! -Catherine

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by Nel Shelby

This September was the third annual performance of Table of Silence by Buglisi Dance Theatre, a free, public tribute and ritual for peace featuring 100+ dancers on the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center in New York City. I’m always amazed by how many people come out to Lincoln Center in the early morning to watch the performance in-person. We want to share this work with as many people as possible, so we also live-streamed the performance for a third year in a row. 5,300 people viewed the live-stream from 25 countries around the world.

We received many online comments during the tribute from audience members who appreciated Buglisi’s dance. It helped families of victims from 9/11, and it helped those who were perhaps distant from the event but were still emotionally affected. It’s a beautiful thing to share dance, especially dance as a healing and peaceful experience, to a wider audience. We recorded and edited our live-stream, so for my first post with 4dancers, I wanted to make sure I shared this dance video with you, too.

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