After Stuart S. Shapiro (creator and producer of the iconic 1980s art-variety show Night Flight and now Night Flight Plus) finished production on the releases of MONDO NEW YORK and COMEDY’S DIRTIEST DOZEN, he embarked on creating a series of VHS “video music magazines” each highlighting core music segments: Metal Head, Slammin Rap, Country Music, and Dance International. These VHS video magazines are “all time zone jewels” that captured music trends and pop culture for a brief window of time in the early 1990s.

DANCE INTERNATIONAL in particular focused on the emerging trends in electronic, hiphop, soul and R&B music – really, anything that wasn’t rock, country or jazz – and sourced content from the US and UK music scene. The series combined fresh interviews, music video premieres, fashion dossiers, original documentary featurettes and head-banging footage from concerts and dance floors around the world, anchored by groundbreaking proto-vaporwave (or “webcore”) interstitials with a punky attitude. While many of the faces and names in these tapes remain in the global pop pantheon, even more have been relegated to the margins of history – making DANCE INTERNATIONAL an invaluable time capsule of the clubs, the parties and the music industry at a moment of profound technological and sociological change.

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of DANCE INTERNATIONAL’s groundbreaking experiment in documenting youth culture – as well as that time of the year when temperatures rise, skin starts to show and people start packing in clubs – Spectacle is pleased to present all five surviving volumes, with Stuart S. Shapiro joining for in-person Q+As on May 20 and May 21.

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 1
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 59 mins.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 9 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, MAY 20 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Stuart Shapiro
THURSDAY, MAY 29 – 10 PM

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The inaugural edition of DANCE INTERNATIONAL kicks off with a heavy dose of primary-source footage of Italo Disco legends Black Box performing live at London Docklands Arena, joined by 808 State, Guru Josh, Daisy Dee, MC Tunes and others – personally shot on 3/4″ tape by Stuart S. Shapiro. Volume 1 also includes an interview with electronic legends Tommy Musto & Frankie Bones, mini-portraits of UK chanteuse Lisa Stansfield and Moses P. of Logic Records, and a mindblowing zoom-in on the overlap between hot rod racing and house music in the streets of Brooklyn, featuring drum-and-bass maestro Kraze (born Richard Jean Laurent) expounding in a dubious British accent.

“It’s really important to keep close to the basics. We are producing for the dance floor, to give the producers the chance to really DJ, and the really important part is that we can test our product before the release, in the club: see the reaction on the dance floor, could change the mix, and that’s really necessary for us. We have to handle artists, you have to time for that, so we can see what the future really is.” – Mattias Martinson, Co-Owner of Logic Records

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 2
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 58 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 10 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Stuart Shapiro
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – 10 PM

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DANCE INTERNATIONAL’s kaleidoscopic approach is on further display in the second installment, which initially focuses on the fusion of rap, funk and house (featuring Mike G from the Jungle Brothers, Afrika Bambataa and UK producer “Dancin’” Danny D) before refracting outwards to depict something called “Hyperstyle for the 1990s” in a cyberpunk montage of web 1.0 interfaces, gyrating young bodies and a depiction of emergent Virtual Reality worthy of Barry Levinson’s classic Seattle erotic thriller DISCLOSURE (or the Aerosmith video for “Amazing”.) The centerpiece of the tape is a look at the notorious Outlaws parties founded by Vito Bruno, infamous for paying off NYPD officers, supplying musicians with drugs and, in 2020, unsuccessfully running for New York State Senate as a “law and order” Republican. Along the way there’s a 10th birthday party for i-D magazine, a deep dive into the escalation of dancehall reggae culture, an interview with acid house legend Baby Ford and an impassioned screed from Boy George against mainstream pop like Kylie Minogue (“we’re in need of another revolution, like punk”) and bemoaning record labels for liking Black music yet rarely signing Black musicians.

“I have the old promoters, the new promoters, people who don’t even speak to each other working together, I have the Black promoters, the white promoters, the gay promoters, the rock promoters, the disco promoters… Tonight this sleazy little loading dock is gonna be the focal point of the entire music industry, of the entire world. It has that New York, decadent, horrible, rough, raw, raunchy feel to it and that’s what it’s supposed to be. All the fabulous people will be here.” – Vito Bruno

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 3
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 57 mins.
In English.

THURSDAY, MAY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 23 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – MIDNIGHT

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Volume 3 testifies to the series’ interest in music’s influence on other cultures worldwide: A profile of Tam Tam Records (featuring A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd) diagnoses the synthesis of “hardcore techno elements” with “hardcore guitar stabs” and rap, effectively X-raying the different styles dominating the charts in the UK at the time. In a piece about the loosening of restrictions on music in former Soviet bloc countries, British DJ Norman Jay ventures to Bratislava to guest-host an episode of the weekly radio show Soul Seduction. Six months after its opening, there’s a profile of the Black Market coffee shop/record store in Vienna – “the only place in town that exclusively features Black music, because there has been no place in Vienna to react on the spot to what’s happening all over the world.” (This also occasions a quick interview with Austria’s only rap group, the Bureaus.) There’s a fascinating interview with legendary fashion designer Michiko Koshino that focuses on the DJs who pick songs for her runway shows and her atelier (although the segment is scored to seminal porn/art group Enigma.)

“I really do think dance music, house music, club music, whatever you wanna call it, is gonna take the States by storm because a lot of kids that were into rap are now into dance music. As far as me being a very internationally known artist in Europe and not as big in America, it really doesn’t phase me that much because I know my time is coming. The first time I went over to Europe, the response to my performances were very good: people enjoyed me, people were receptive, I had a great time, and they just know how to party.” – Adeva

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 4
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1991
Worldwide. 59 mins.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 16 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 23 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – 10 PM

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If you weren’t feeling ensconced in the Nineties already, DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 4 features an in-depth profile of the short-lived Long Island rap posse ‘Young Black Teenagers” who enjoyed the support of Public Enemy producer (and Sound of Urban Listeners, or SOUL Records mastermind) Hank Shocklee – despite none of the members actually being Black. Ralph Tresvant gets an extensive interview about his first steps as a solo artist (and the wider misconceptions that hindered New Edition, with no shortage of veiled criticisms of their record label.) Also featured is an extended video for the 12” version of Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on but the Rent” and a short documentary wherein a group of singers tagged as the “Motown of the 90s” (Ceybil, Dee Dee Brave, D’borah) break down the renaissance in New Jersey soul.

“What is it in the nature of Man that makes us hate? And cheat? And steal? And kill? Why do people get off on bigotry, intolerance and racial intolerance? There’s something wrong with human nature! They put their hands in their pockets. It relieves their conscience. There’s something wrong with human nature! What is it that makes a man gaze down from his penthouse suite, watching those young children sleeping rough on the streets? All over the world, there’s something wrong with human nature…!” – Gary Clail

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 5
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1991
Worldwide. 58 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 24 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – MIDNIGHT

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Like its predecessors, the final DANCE INTERNATIONAL tape gestures towards a more liberated world, where people are able to enjoy music across genres, unburdened by the strictures of race, class and geography. There’s a fascinating study of Crystal Waters that digs into her encouragement by the Basement Boys, for whom she specifically wrote “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless) as well as her advocacy for queer pride and the destigmatization of AIDS. George Clinton gets a deep-dive interview in which he discusses a Mothership Connection feature film to be directed by HOUSE PARTY’s Reginald Hudlin – shelved, but in preproduction at the time. The final DANCE INTERNATIONAL segment is a black-and-white music video for a still-unreleased Massive Attack song called “Just a Matter of Time”, in which Robert del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Shara Nelson (who famously contributed vocals for “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Lately”) go searching for prodigal member Tricky – perhaps shelved because he left the group after Blue Lines.

“My theory in the studio is, do everything that other producers told you not to do. Everything they told you you can’t put on the record – put it on the record… But I’m preoccupied with extraterrestrial things. If something doesn’t happen pretty soon, we’re all gonna bore ourselves to death.” – George Clinton

THE WORLD IS FULL OF SECRETS
dir. Graham Swon, 2018
98 mins. United States.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 23 – 7:30 PM (Q&A ONE NIGHT ONLY)

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Almost a zelig-like figure of the New York film scene, Graham Swon is best known as a producer on some of the best and most truly independent American films of the past decade. As if helping create the films of Ted Fendt, Ricky D’Amrbose, Matías Piñeiro, and Dan Sallitt weren’t enough, Swon is also a startlingly innovative filmmaker in his own right whose first two films, THE WORLD IS FULL OF SECRETS (2018) and AN EVENING SONG (for three voices) (2024) display an impressive penchant for visual experimentation, narrative game-playing, and a transcendental attention to the passage of time and memory. In honor of the release of AN EVENING SONG in New York and Los Angeles, we’ll be hosting Swon to present a special screening of his first film THE WORLD IS FULL OF SECRETS.

Set over one night at a girls’ high school slumber party where five friends hold a scary story contest, SECRETS is an heir to storytelling anthologies like Boccaccio’s Decamaron, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, or EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt. Filled with sumptuous dissolves, a mysterious narrator, and durationally long shots that stretch beyond 20 minutes, it’s also a rich aesthetic experience aided by cinematographer Barton Cortright. Both nostalgic of teenage innocence and filled with the macabre, SECRETS is a unique and unsettling evocation of the precariousness of suburban childhood explored through American oral traditions.

“This non-gory horrific tale without monsters or bloodshed is probably the most poisonous and scary US film produced in recent years. Inspired by Southern Gothic’s dark romanticism, shot with acute minimalism, this film conjures up the best contemporary horror writers (such as Brian Evanson, Thomas Ligotti or Lisa Tuttle) with its hypnotic narration, its stylised grammar, both elegant and brutal, and its existential and metaphysical terror. In a gesture that reminds one of Warhol, Graham Swon prints on the young girls’ faces an ancestral violence inherent to the American culture, and puts the spectators in a torpor from which they will unheartedly depart.” – Victor Bournérias

QUEEN OF FIST (山東老娘)
aka KUNG FU MAMA
dir. Chien Lung, 1973
Taiwan. 89 min.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MAY 9 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 11 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 24 – 10 PM

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“It’s not nice to fool with mother… The meanest mother of them all!”

When an axe gang murders a young boxer and kidnaps his sister, their elderly mother travels from Shandong to Shanghai to seek revenge on the gang’s vicious Boss Lu. Her arrival is met with derision from the gang, but little do they know that the sweet little old lady standing before them is really a tough-as-nails kung fu master, ready to kick some serious ass to protect her family.

A solid Taiwanese basher with a matronly twist, launched into the stratosphere by a powerhouse performance from Hsieh Chin-Chu. Hsieh, a star of wuxia serials in the 1940s and 50s, was well into her 60s when she took on the role of the incomparable Mother Ma. Although the film was released under multiple different titles between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S., we here at Spectacle prefer to run with the literal translation of its Chinese title (and riff on the similarly-named Shaw Bros. classic), “The Granny from Shantung”.

Be sure to bring your most badass 奶奶 out to a special Mother’s Day screening on Sunday, 5/11!

Special thanks to Far East Flix.

THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI
dirs. Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber, 1916
United States, 115 min.
Silent with English intertitles.

SATURDAY, MAY 10 – 7:30 PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY! LIVE SCORE BY JAKE PEPPER AND ZACH KOEBER

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Spectacle is proud to present one of American cinema’s first true epics, with a new original score performed by esteemed local musicians Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber. 

With a production budget of $250K and based on the 1828 French opera La muette de Portici, THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI was Universal’s first blockbuster gamble, showcasing ballerina Anna Pavlova’s elegant dancing against the backdrop of a tragedy of star-crossed lovers. Pavlova plays Finella, our titular “dumb girl,” whose hopelessly romantic personality attracts a powerful Spanish duke (Wadsworth Harris). However, this affair complicates Finella’s relationship with her brother Masaniello (renowned silent filmmaker Rupert Julian), a determined fisherman slowly rallying the people toward revolution. 

Elevating melodrama to violent heights, THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI is one of the earliest examples of movie magic, with biblical images of public chaos and heavenly, spellbinding dance footage from Pavlova and company. The film originally screened with orchestral accompaniment; while we don’t necessarily have the space for a full symphonic group, we are pleased to work with two of the DIY music scene’s finest, Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber. Appearing for the first time at Spectacle, they’ll provide a music accompaniment to match the picture’s majestic presentation. 

…a crucial rediscovery—as are the art of Weber over all and, for that matter, the celebration of Pavlova’s single screen performance … Along with the specifics of their genius, “The Dumb Girl of Portici” is a welcome reminder that the history of cinema still belongs to the future.

—Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber make up half of Ace Bandage, the jam-heavy rock band based in Brooklyn. Their fondness of improvisation and vast knowledge of timbral music allows them to shift seamlessly through varied sonic palettes. Pepper also performed in Brooklyn synth punk outfit Future Punx, while Koeber got his start in the local scene as one-third of Archie Pelago, and he currently collaborates with deep house producer Max in the World. Both Jake and Zach have also guest DJ’d on the prestigious independent station The Lot Radio.

Special thanks to George Schmalz and Kino Lorber.

RED BONE GUERILLAS
dir. Pierre Bennu, 2003
100 mins. United States.
In English.

TUESDAY, MAY 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 18 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Pierre Bennu (ONE NIGHT ONLY!)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – 10 PM 
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – 7:30 PM

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SPECIAL EVENT (Q&A) TICKETS

Spectacle is thrilled to invite interdisciplinary artist PIERRE BENNU back to present his film RED BONE GUERILLAS, which the theater showed in 2013 after it was recommended by filmmaker Terence Nance (AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY, RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS).

Shot on miniDV, Bennu’s zero-budget feature debut follows a troupe of young acting students who seek revenge after being bullied by their teacher, an overhyped Broadway has-been named Magenta Bergenstein (“You clap for yourself, not me!”)

Led by aspiring filmmaker Bonita Evans, the Red Bone Guerillas initially set out to document Magenta’s downfall, but soon find themselves staging public interventions that combine Situationist philosophizing with revolutionary politics, striving for an “aesthetic towards freedom” even as their lives can’t help but pull them in other directions.

While Bennu’s film begins like a Christopher Guest-style sendup of theater-kid narcissism and the eternal question of whether capital-A art can effect political change, it soon reveals itself as brilliant study of forms and clichés. Some scenes feel like gripping reality television, others like performance pieces ala Andrea Fraser. And while the film makes sure to entertain, its final act unravels like a political thriller, tackling the blurring of the private and public self in ways that recall both SUNSET BOULEVARD and any number of unfolding real-time celebrity meltdowns. Maybe the funniest thing about the RBGs is how easy it is for them to get to the top: while Bennu’s prescient vision of socially mediated paranoia mostly takes place offline, it’s telling that a cell phone or a suite of computer monitors signals both distraction and power – a lurch forward in conspicuous consumption.

PIERRE BENNU is an award winning filmmaker, writer, artist and performer. He is the principal creative of Exittheapple, an alternative media and arts company specializing in film and digital media, visual arts, gift books, and music.