BorderLens: Screening of ‘And Then We Danced’

Screening of “And Then We Danced” (2019) Directed by Levan Akin. Sweden and Georgia

Merab is a dedicated young dancer at the Georgian National Ensemble in Tbilisi. His personal and artistic life follow the gender norms for young men in Georgian society, although he struggles to conform to the standard performance of masculinity in traditional dance roles. One day, the dance group is joined by Irakli. Irakli’s talent and exuberance will have him replace Merab in the choreography. After a short initial animosity, Merab and Irakli will start getting closer and closer as the rehearsals go on. Their bond will evolve in surprising ways leading them to nurture and invent new vocabularies of intimacy and artistic forms of expression.
Directed by Levan Akin, a Georgian-born director from Sweden, the film makes a statement in support of the 2013 anti-homophobic rallies against the Georgian Orthodox Church in Tbilisi. Its screenings themselves

BorderLens
Queer outlines of Geography and Gender

The Fall 2024 edition of the Slavic film series explores geographic displacement and queer identities. Shot by directors from Georgia, former Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine, the films show how bodies and borders subvert the fictious seamlessness of power structures. Ranging from 1982 to yet unreleased films, the series shines a spotlight on how geography, just like gender, is performed.

Presented by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Co-sponsored by the Humanities Council and the Program on Gender and Sexuality Studies.

More information can be found on the Slavic Languages and Literatures website.