For over 30 years filmmaker Marlene Millar has created screen dance, documentaries and experimental media productions. Having pursued graduate filmmaking studies at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, she 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. 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).
Millar is a prolific educator teaching filmmaking workshops across continents at institutes such as Centre Imagine (Burkino Faso), Loikka (Helsinki) and has mentored documentary filmmakers in Iqaluit, Iglooklik, Cambridge Bay and Pangnirtung, Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic.
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. 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).
Millar is a prolific educator teaching filmmaking workshops across continents at institutes such as Centre Imagine (Burkino Faso), Loikka (Helsinki) and has mentored documentary filmmakers in Iqaluit, Iglooklik, Cambridge Bay and Pangnirtung, Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic.