Michael Spencer Phillips has been a professional dancer based out of New York City for the last 22 years. He was working in Paris when COVID-19 forced his production to shut down. By his own admission, that left him with a fair amount of free time on his hands. He used that time to delve into a project, which he’s now working on in Sedona.
Phillips is in Sedona with 12 dancers. The team is composed mostly of Arizona-based dancers from Phoenix who Phillips has never met. The only exception is his Los Angeles-based assistant. The team will be spending time at various sites in Sedona and the greater Verde Valley, shooting dance scenes that will use the red rocks not only as a stage but even as a character in the performance. In the end, all of the footage will be edited into a short film.
Phillips has always loved dance and has long known he wanted to continue in it. This particular project gives him a chance to merge his love of dance with another love — nature.
“I’m passionate about the outdoors and being outdoors,” Spencer said. “I grew up on Lake Michigan. I’ve always felt a great connection to the great American landscapes, if you will. This project has been a way to marry those two things that I not only know the most about but am probably most passionate about and am connected to.”
Sedona is actually the second part of a series which will use five different locations. While the five locations will be put together in a larger film, each will also stand on its own.
The first part of the series was filmed at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, off of Lake Michigan and near where Spencer grew up. It was on a trip home over the summer when Spencer began bringing the idea to life.
“As a dancer and choreographer, I found myself suddenly with a lot of time on my hands in March,” he said. “I started going back to early videos and research about American modern dance and seeing these old films of dancers dancing along the East Coast. I started thinking that I want to continue to be creative and my field is not working right now. So how can I continue doing what I love, which is to dance?”
“I spent two months this summer in Northern Michigan and I began playing with myself actually dancing in the landscape and filming it. All of these locations that I knew as a child where I would camp, play and hike, I started using them as backdrops for the choreography but also as challenges. I was just taking my camera everywhere and experimenting — choreographing with a drone and seeing if I could make the landscape a protagonist in a film.”
Given it’s where he grew up, Northern Michigan was a natural place to start the project. But Sedona being Phase 2 of the film also allowed him to get back to his childhood.
Phillips was struck by Sedona when he first came here as a 12-year-old boy with his family. He’s continued to feel a special connection in subsequent visits.
As such, when Phillips began this project, with the intention of merging dance and the outdoors together, Sedona was a natural place to go.
“I’ve been on several trips here where I was hiking and I do feel that there is something about Sedona that holds history of humankind,” he said. “People talk about a lot of spiritual energy that’s here as well. I find that when I see the red rocks I appreciate the smallness of the human being in the American landscape.”
Spencer noted that he is not doing this project alone or with only the dancers. He credited the people with the different parks for their help. He also expressed thanks to Winnie Meunch as well as Convergence Ballet for their guidance and help finding dancers. Another key person in the project is Spencer’s husband, Dino Kiratzidis, who, as an architect, has a good artistic vision that sometimes helps Spencer decide how to lay things out.
The film will be scored by Darian Thomas. It will likely be done in early January. While it will stand alone as well as be part of a series of five, it likely won’t be available for viewing for a while. It’s possible that Spencer will decide to enter it in a film festival and if that happens it won’t premiere until then.
After Sedona, Spencer hopes to continue the project in a forest that’s been burned by wildfires, then at the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California and finally in Hawaii.
Something that helped Spencer get into nature-based dancing and choreography is seeing Pina Bausch’s “Rite of Spring.” He’s found it challenging, but also fun and exciting to see what dancers can do in nature that couldn’t be done on a traditional stage, as well as what can’t be done.
He’s looking forward to seeing how that translates to Sedona’s scenery.
“Martha Graham called dancers athletes of God,” Spencer said. “That’s something that will be able to be seen in this film against these amazing rocks.”
