Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation Volume 1

Joyful, androgynous forms shimmy across the screen to the sound of world-beat music.

Erica Russell

Feet of Song

Unforgettable

Smoothly evolving geometrically shaped dancers covered in evolving patterns segue into different combinations to Charlie Hart&apos;s jazzy, Afro-Latin beat. Oddly erotic in an androgynous way that disturbed several of the preppy jocks in the audience enough to make them walk out grumbling, these hand-animated nude figures are indicated only by brush-stroke highlights and air-brush fills in a deco/cubist/social-realist style that gracefully plays with fluid morphing through mirroring, layering, and interplay between ground and figure. 

From years of enjoying the annual Spike and Mike touring animation in our local repertory theater only this and the German short Balance come immediately to mind. Like all art, what we saw describes ourselves rather than the piece, but if I were trying to define art briefly, I&apos;d begin with this memorably singular beauty.

So before this review devolves further into ludicrous art-show catalogue mumbo, which I will claim is due to the 10- line requirement for reviews, why not check out the artist, Erica Russell, on YouTube, where you will find this short as well as a later, Oscar-nominated work with slightly more representational figures dancing in a narrative called Triangle (posted as Triangulo). You can also buy Feet of Song on Amazon in a collection named Great Animation Vol. 3, which looks like a repackaging of the Spike &amp; Mike&apos;s Festival of Animation 1 that is not available.

Smoothly evolving geometrically shaped dancers covered in evolving patterns segue into different combinations to Charlie Hart's jazzy, Afro-Latin beat. Oddly erotic in an androgynous way that disturbed several of the preppy jocks in the audience enough to make them walk out grumbling, these hand-animated nude figures are indicated only by brush-stroke highlights and air-brush fills in a deco/cubist/social-realist style that gracefully plays with fluid morphing through mirroring, layering, and interplay between ground and figure. 

From years of enjoying the annual Spike and Mike touring animation in our local repertory theater only this and the German short Balance come immediately to mind. Like all art, what we saw describes ourselves rather than the piece, but if I were trying to define art briefly, I'd begin with this memorably singular beauty.

So before this review devolves further into ludicrous art-show catalogue mumbo, which I will claim is due to the 10- line requirement for reviews, why not check out the artist, Erica Russell, on YouTube, where you will find this short as well as a later, Oscar-nominated work with slightly more representational figures dancing in a narrative called Triangle (posted as Triangulo). You can also buy Feet of Song on Amazon in a collection named Great Animation Vol. 3, which looks like a repackaging of the Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation 1 that is not available.

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Feet of Song

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