Direction and Editing: Janessa Clark
Choreography: Janessa Clark in collaboration with the dancers
Cinematography and Performance: Jasmine Fitch, Taylor Jeffries, Stephanie
Moyers, Lily O'Hara
Music Composition: David Shane Smith
Alchemy is a dance film featuring dancers from Old Dominion University's
Dance Program. Artist Janessa Clark embarked on a virtual residency with the
dancers in which they explored choreography, compositional tools and the
cinematic practices related to Clark's video art piece Communion during the
fall 2020 semester. Created during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Alchemy
explores the dancers' complex emotions and experiences over eight months of
social distancing, isolation, and disruption to daily life. Motivated by a
desire to dance together in the same 'space', the film brings the dancers
closer than they can be in real life so they may perform for one final time in
2020.