Using humor and a love of fantasy, "The Amazing Amy" Harlib connects with audiences through performing strenuous yoga-based contortion acts in New York City. But behind the showmanship lives an incredibly lonely human being.

"American Swan in Paris is both a love letter to Paris and to dance. It features the charming Kathleen Thielhelm from Wisconsin, nine years a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, and a recent addition to the Bejart Ballet Lausanne. Not long after her arrival, the company is to perform at the Palais Garnier in Paris (the old Paris Opera) and the excitement and tension is palpable."--Original case.

Documentary on Indian classical dance form Bharat natyam.

A sharp knife cuts the hand of filmmaker Theodore Ushev. A thin stream of his blood comes to life on a white page. All over the world, idealist revolutionaries shed their blood to denounce injustices. Yet blood is also the very symbol of life. Sketches drawn using the filmmaker's own blood explore this paradox. Why fight for ideals, noble though they may be, if you must die for them in the end? Are rebellion and insurrection egotistical deeds, or are they lessons in pure altruism? These complex and important questions nourish Ushev's musings. In Blood Manifesto, this Canadian of Bulgarian origin signs a violent, brutal and troubling political statement in his own blood and narrates it in his own gravelly voice. Poetic and philosophical, the film remains lucid but fundamentally disillusioned and cynical. The viewer comes away from this dance of symbols shaken and subtly changed.

This video shuns the commercial, idealized versions of the rumba, and looks instead at the neighborhoods of blacks, whites and mulattos, a less glamorous setting, but with strong popular roots.

• Queens for a day (title on container and disc menu: Reines d'un jour) / [presented by] Aïe Productions, Actua Films, Telévision Suisse Romande ; producer, Olivier Talpain ; directed by Pascal Magnin (1996, 26 min., Switzerland)
• Measure / presented by 33 Fainting Spells and Agate Films ; choreographed by Dayna Hanson ; directed by Dayna Hanson, Gaelin Hanson ; produced by Carlo Scandiuzzi (7 min., 2001, USA)
• R.I.P. (title on container and disc menu: Rest in peace) / choreographers, Hans Hof Ensemble ; written & directed by Annick Vroom ; producers, Hans de Weers, Hans de Wolf ; an Egmond film and television production for BBC/Arts Council of England/NPS (2000, 10 min., Netherlands/UK)
• Village trilogy : casa, copii, famiglia / [presented by] Grimm Pictures ; a film by Laura Taler (1995, 23 min., Canada)
• Cornered / danced and choreographed by Susanna Hood ; director, Michael Downing (1997, 5 min., Canada)
• Contrecoup / [presented by] PM Productions, Alias Compagnie, et la Telévision Suisse Romande ; mise en scène, Guilherme Botelho ; choregraphie, Guilherme Botelho ; réalisation, Pascal Magnin (1997, 25 min., Switzerland).

Presents six short dance films from the 2002 Dance Camera West festival. Reines d'un jour features six tumbling bodies on mountain slopes of the Alps, caught between heaven and Earth, among the cows and the villagers. In Measure, a relationship emerges between a man and woman that is revealed as much through their eyes as through the expressive timing of their rhythmically intricate steps. In Rest in peace bizarre behavior and past secrets emerge as four siblings bury their parents. The Village trilogy, inspired by the displacement and destruction of World War II, returns to the physical language of early cinema to evoke the power of the spirit. Cornered is a black and white film that redefines gravity as an attractive force of right angles. Contrecoup depicts an urban environment torn by violence, disorder, and loneliness where the light is sinister, daily life is hostile, and sleep is a nightmare.

"A biographical film on the well known Kuchipudi classical dancer Swapna Sundari."--Container.

• 7th symphony / choreographed by Toer van Schayk ; music by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Grosse Fuge / choreographed by Hans van Manen ; music by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Piano variations / choreographed by Hans van Manen. The variations are: Sarcasms / music by Serge Prokofiev
• Trois gnossiennes / music by Erik Satie
• Pose / music by Claude Debussy.

Contains performances by the Dutch National Ballet and an interview with choreographer Hans van Manen.

A visual exploration of the human hand; working, communicating, creating art and music, expressing sensuality, used as weapons for defense or aggression, and as instruments for healing and worship.

About the religious performances in honor to the Virgen del Carmen in Paucartambo, Cuzco (Peru).