The Frightening of Angels (1997)

"Who will it help to hear the frightening of angels?" A video dance about suffering and pushing through despair. The dancers, caught like prisoners behind the bars of the Port Arthur Historic Site, struggle to stretch out of their tightly constricted spaces and movement vocabularies to find freedom of movement and spirit. The backdrop of the Historic Site, brought to life very differently than on the usual tourist videos, provides the cells and broken stones of misery and at the same time a transcendently gorgeous vista of hope. The soundtrack borrows a classic statement by Beethoven about the power of beauty and creativity to transcend misery.