Director: Jess Hu
Director of Photography: Red Gaskell
Produced by: Shmood Agency
Dancer: Habby Jacques
Composer: Martin Gohary
In the pampas grasslands of Montauk, New York, dancer Habby “Hob” Jacques explores and redefines the environment through movement. As he glides across vast open fields and coastlines like a regal bird, each bend, pop, and flow of his liquid joints channel the poetry of the landscape.
“I wanted the film to embody a feeling of boundless motion, peace, reflection, and hope,” says director Jess Hu who collaborated on Danes Le Noir with Jacques. "We may not know what the future holds but we find the answers in moving with true intention.”
The pair created the dance film in 2020 as a response to growing global uncertainty. The team also took this short film as an opportunity to redefine flexing, a dance style that started in Jamaica and was transplanted to Brooklyn's street dance scene a couple of decades ago.
“To achieve the focus of redefining space as a whole,” says Hu, “we needed to break away from the conventions of society and expectations.” By pairing flexing in a vast open space with a gentle piano score, the director elevates and shifts the perspective of where movement can live.