FICTION
2011 | HDV | color | 30 min
Shot in the East New York section of Brooklyn around the time of Hurricane Sandy, Ditch Plains (HDV, 30 mins) is a dystopian sci-fi street dance film featuring members of Ringmasters Crew.
Like avatars running the levels of an apocalyptic video game, Ringmasters Corey, Jay Donn and Marty McFly hallucinate the city and its networks as a space of terror, mutation and magic. “Flexing,” “bone breaking,” “pauzing” and “connecting” in nighttime streets, hotel hallways and a posh Park Avenue apartment, the dancers improvise dream-like scenes suggesting digital death matches, stop-and-frisk situations and catastrophic man-machine interfaces. Meanwhile, documentary shots of Far Rockaway show the city’s attempt to manage disaster in real life: police patrol the shattered flood zone as citizens line up with jerry cans. Scenes on iPhone screens play like Vine transmissions in a blacked-out world where no survivors or friends can receive them.
Referencing contemporary pop spectacles such as Step Up Revolution, as well as Jean Rouch’s The Mad Masters, Ditch Plains imagines a sort of End of Days street party while free-styling an abstract narrative about the fatal coupling of subjects and systems under conditions of permanent crisis.
Founded in 2007, Ringmasters Crew is a competitive street dance crew based in New York. Ringmasters Crew has appeared on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew, Entertainment Tonight and America’s Got Talent, as well as in music videos by Nicki Minaj and Black Eyed Peas.
DIRECTOR Loretta Fahrenholz
CINEMATOGRAPHER Till Megerle
ADDITIONAL CAMERA Loretta Fahrenholz, Connor Owens
EDITING Lena Hatebur, Steffen Martin
SOUND DESIGN Steffen Martin
MUSIC Dan Aran, Timo Ellis, Steffen Martin, Pharmakon
PRODUCTION COORDINATION Inka Meissner
TEXT John Kelsey
VOICE OVER Corey Batts
COLOR GRADING Ben Brix
TITLE ANIMATION Elisabeth Schulze
INTERLUDE-ANIMATION Steffen Martin
TITLES & GRAPHIC DESIGN Lina Grumm, HIT
VERLEIH Arsenal
CAST
Ringmasters Corey, Jay Donn, Marty McFly, Jim Fletcher, Vibez, Asha Flasha, Damian «Gucci-ino» Buchanan, Lil Buck, Spyda Da HatMan, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Princess Lockeroo, 8 Ball, Ace, Dez, DVS, Flizzo, Maze, Optimus, Problemz, Scorp, Lakela Brown, Marie Karlberg, Jackie Klempay, Michael Stynes, Vanessa Cintron, Prynce Ptah, Michael Sanchez
EXHIBITIONS solo & group
MoMa, Manhattan
Kunsthalle Zürich
Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam
The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm
Museum Moderner Kunst / Stiftung Ludwig, Wien
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Milano Film Festival, Italy
Artists Space at Frieze New York 2014
Kadist, San Francisco
Project Native Informant, London
Private Artmuseum, Warschau
KW Institute for Contemorary Art, Berlin
Galerie Buchholz at Art Cologne 2017
D21 Kunstraum Leipzig
SCRIPT & EDITING Lena Hatebur
CINEMATOGRAPHER Moritz Bauer, Lena Hatebur
COMPOSER Christopher Dierks,
SOUND MIX Jana Irmert
COLOUR CORRECTION Freeda Peeple
PRODUCTION Lena Hatebur
CLIENT Berliner Gartenarbeitsschulen
SCRIPT & EDITING Lena Hatebur
CINEMATOGRAPHER Moritz Bauer, Lena Hatebur
COMPOSER Christopher Dierks,
SOUND MIX Jana Irmert
COLOUR CORRECTION Freeda Peeple
PRODUCTION Lena Hatebur
CLIENT Berliner Gartenarbeitsschulen
SCRIPT & EDITING Lena Hatebur
CINEMATOGRAPHER Moritz Bauer, Lena Hatebur
COMPOSER Christopher Dierks,
SOUND MIX Jana Irmert
COLOUR CORRECTION Freeda Peeple
PRODUCTION Lena Hatebur
CLIENT Berliner Gartenarbeitsschulen
CINEMATOGRAPHER Moritz Bauer, Lena Hatebur
COMPOSER Christopher Dierks,
SOUND MIX Jana Irmert
COLOUR CORRECTION Freeda Peeple
PRODUCTION Lena Hatebur
CLIENT Berliner Gartenarbeitsschulen
