With a background in dance and design, filmmaker Marlene Millar has created screen dance, documentaries and experimental media productions since 1991. With a BFA in Cinema, Millar pursued graduate filmmaking studies at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, and received a Pew Dance Media Fellowship at the University of California (Los Angeles). Millar’s expansive career was honoured at her first solo exhibition, a retrospective of her 30-year practice at Threshold Artspace, UK (2019).
Since 2000, Millar has co-created a critically acclaimed collection of dance media work with Philip Szporer through their production company, MOUVEMENT PERPÉTUEL. Their award-winning films have been broadcast nationally and widely circulated at international festivals and influential exhibition spaces: the 2010 Cultural Olympics, World Exhibition in Shanghai, and a UNESCO tour of Latin America.
Founded in 2014, the MIGRATION DANCE FILM PROJECT series (LAY ME LOW, PILGRIMAGE, MOVE, TRAVERSE, NAVIGATION), produced/directed by Millar and produced/choreographed by Sandy Silva, has garnered over 25 awards internationally, including Best Canadian Short Film at the 39th th Festival International du Film sur l’Art. This process-driven continuum comes to life as Millar transposes the choreography to the screen, creating a poignant visual language that reveals the intricacies of these issue-driven, performative stories centred on migration.
Millar’s installation/experimental media works explore alternative forms of screens, capturing metaphoric histories and docu-fiction resonances—notably in the recent video installation WITNESS. Collaborations include: VR project SKELETON CONDUCTOR; stereoscopic 3D installation research project LEANING ON A HORSE, ASKING FOR DIRECTIONS (UCLA/UCSC); LOST ACTION: TRACE, stereoscopic (3D) live-action/animated film (National Film Board of Canada); 1001 LIGHTS, installation (Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, Jewish Museum of Australia) and film installations for live performance—TERMINUS and QUARANTAINE 4 x 4 (Société des arts technologiques/SAT) and SING JUK SING (Oboro).
