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Join us for a post screening discussion with Oscar-nominated filmmaker David Petersen and Steven Melendez, artistic director of the New York Theatre Ballet.
Filmed over ten years, Lift tells the often-unseen story of homelessness in America through a group of young homeless and home-insecure ballet dancers in New York City. After performing all over the world, ballet dancer Steven Melendez returns to the Bronx shelter where he grew up to give back to his community by offering a New York Theatre Ballet workshop. His reaction to the shelter from his childhood sends him on an unexpected journey with three kids —Victor, Yolanssie and Sharia— to reckon with the past he escaped through ballet. As young dance students, they face the same chasm of home insecurity that long separated Steven from his audience and makes the arts inaccessible to so many kids who share his background. The children he mentors offer him insight into turning a hidden trauma into dance, and together they turn ballet into an expression all their own. (David Petersen, 2022, DCP, 87 minutes)
Free. Registration required.
