1998/35mm/98mins/color/Dolby A/1:33

Distribution Contact:

Artistic License Films

250 West 57th Street, Suite 606

New York, NY 10107

212.265.9124 Fax 212.262.9299

"Might be the best dance documentary ever!"

"A clear-eyed portrait of a great artist at work."

- Terry Teachout, Time Magazine

"It's A Must!"

- Janet Maslin, New York Times

"A Triumph!"

- Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice

"Thrilling!"

- John Anderson, Newsday

"A work of art to be savored and cherished.

Made to be watched again and again!"

- Gia Kourlas, Time Out

Master + Muscle = Magic

- Daily News

"Gets up close and personal! Captures the subtle essentials of dance making.

The creative process in loving detail!"

- Jami Bernard, Daily News

"Electric!"

- Valerie Gladstone, Newsday

"Visually captures the life force in Taylor's remarkable compositions!"

- Jill Black, Interview

"Extraordinary...one of the most scrupulous records of the dance world ever committed to film."

- Ken Eisner, Variety

"Affectionate and Accomplished!"

- Rod Dreher, New York Post

"Captures the brilliance...of this legendary artist, Paul Taylor."

- Shayna Samuels, Dance Magazine

"This may be the finest examination of a great artist and the creative process of dance ever made. Don't miss it!"

-Seattle International Film Festival 1998

"It is an exceptional film not only because it successfully documents the creative process of a different art form and the extraordinary impulse that propels the creation, but also because it offers insight into the creative genius of the subjects and the flaws that make them human."

-Jury, Golden Gate Awards

- 1999 Golden Spire Winner

Producer/Director Matthew Diamond

Producer Jerry Kupfer

Executive Producer Walter Scheuer in association with The Four Oaks Foundation

Director of Photography Tom Hurwitz

Editor Pam Wise, A.C.E.

Production Sound Mixer Peter Miller

Associate Producer Daisy Pommer

Assistant Camera Antonio Rossi

Assistant Editor James Fletcher

Post Production Supervisor Gini Reticker

Sound Editors Margaret Crimmins

Paul D. Hsu

Line Producer Jack Gulick

Unit Production Managers Gretchen McGowan

Heather Maidat

Sanjay Sethi, India

Gaffer Ned Hallick

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY

Artistic Director Paul Taylor

Rehearsal Director Bettie De Jong

Executive Director Ross Kramberg

PAUL TAYLOR DANCERS

Francie Huber Silvia Nevjinsky

Andrew Asnes Andrew LeBeau

Thomas Patrick Takehiro Ueyama

Caryn Heilman Ted Thomas

Patrick Corbin Heather Berest

Rachel Berman Maureen Mansfield

Lisa Viola Michael Trusnovec

Richard Chen See

Kristi Egtvedt

Paul Taylor has been hailed as the world's greatest living choreographer, having created a stunning body of dance work over the last forty years. When the curtain opens on the Paul Taylor Dance Company, audiences see a troupe of dancers soaring through the works of this formidable genius. However, behind the scenes lies a complex world of ambition, emotion, creation, and hard-nosed decisions.

Dancemaker is a film that tells the tale of this extraordinary, peculiarly American company. Cutting from stage to backstage, the film looks at the rise of Taylor from solitary child to star dancer to master choreographer. It is filled with both historic and contemporary footage of Taylor's remarkable creations and the wonderful dancers who have performed them. Interviews with current and past members of the company give the audience glimpses of the pain, joy, obsession and love that motivate the artists. The film travels with Taylor and Company from the rehearsal studio to an embassy-sponsored tour of India through a strike-threatened Broadway season. And finally, it gets to the core of Taylor's talent, as he wrestles with the making of a new dance that is the centerpiece of his company's season and of the film.

Dancemaker is the result of collaboration between the members of the award-winning team representing Producer/Director Matthew Diamond, Producer Jerry Kupfer and renowned Cinematographer Tom Hurwitz and Editor Pam Wise. The film's Executive Producer, Walter Scheuer, is also the producer of the Oscar-winning From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China.

Director Matthew Diamond has an ability to frame dance simply because he was once a dancer himself. He brings viewers inside the dance from the dancer's perspective instead of relegating them to watching from the audience. Prior to becoming a director, Mr. Diamond choreographed for many dance companies including The Washington Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company and Bat-Dor Dance Company of Israel. His work has been featured at Carnegie Hall, Jacob's Pillow and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As a director, Mr. Diamond has won two Emmy Awards; the Director's Guild Award, and the Humanitas Award. Specials directed for television include The Balanchine Celebration, Paul Taylor's The Wrecker's Ball, Garth Fagan's Griot: New York, Some Enchanted Evening: Celebrating Oscar Hammerstein as well as the television production of the Broadway play Victor, Victoria.

His credits include numerous episodes of prime time television including: Naked Truth, Golden Girls, Designing Women, Family Ties, The Preston Episodes, Doogie Howser, M.D., and Anything But Love. Recently, Mr. Diamond directed In Performance at The White House featuring CeCe Winans, Savion Glover, and Bebe Neuwirth.

Executive Producer Walter Scheuer began his involvement in film in 1979 when he produced the Academy Award-winning From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. Since then his major commitment to non-profit feature length documentaries has produced a number of films including Fiddlefest, released by Miramax Films as Small Wonders, A Hungry Feeling - The life and death of Brendan Behan, High Fidelity - The Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet, November's Children...Revolution in Prague and most recently, Dancemaker. Scheuer's latest project, The Making of Turandot, is a film about the Zhang Yimou production of Puccini's "Turandot," conducted by Zubin Mehta and is currently in production. Walter Scheuer also devotes a great deal of time as a member of the Board of Directors of Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, as well as other public and private foundations.

Producer Jerry Kupfer began his career producing live music and comedy programs for the Apollo Theatre and Black Entertainment Television. He then won an Emmy Award for TV Nation, an offbeat satirical magazine program hosted by Michael (Roger and Me) Moore. His additional major network credits include ABC's New Passages and CBS's People Yearbook '95 . He co-produced New School Order, a PBS documentary about the dismantling of a school system in Pennsylvania, which premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Currently, Kupfer is producing a 20-episode children's series for Jim Henson Television to be aired on Nickelodeon and entitled The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. Dancemaker marks his first foray into the world of dance.

Director of Photography Tom Hurwitz has worked on many films ranging from television and feature documentaries to television and feature programs and has won awards throughout. He has also had extensive experience working on films in the cultural field. His more recent credits include a PBS production about an extraordinary new work by the Bill T. Jones Dance Company entitled Still/Here; a Sony series for children with Wynton Marsalis and Seiji Ozawa entitled Marsalis on Music; the Academy Award-nominated Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse, a biographical documentary on Balanchine's last great ballerina; The Making of Turandot, about the production of a Puccini opera in Florence, as staged by Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, and conducted by Zubin Mehta.

During his career so far, Hurwitz has acquired two Emmy Awards and a Sundance Festival Prize for Cinematography and the films he has shot have won twelve Emmys, four Academy Awards and a Camera D'Or. Some of these films include Lee Grant's Down and Out In America, Barbara Kopple's American Dream, Harlan County USA, and Wild Man Blues, Aviva Slein's The Ten Year Lunch, and Camera D'Or winner at Cannes, Robert Young's Alambrista.

Editor Pam Wise, A.C.E., learned to edit cinema verite documentaries working with the masters Ricky Leacock, Charlotte Zwerin, D.A. Pennebaker, Bob Drew, John Marshall, and the Maysles brothers. She began her film career recording sound and editing the film Isabella Stewart Gardner with Leacock. Ms. Wise has honed her story-telling skills and music and dance editing on such films as Horowitz Plays Mozart, a Maysles film which premiered at the NY Film Festival, Carnegie Hall Gets Plastered, (co-director), A Tribute to Hank Williams, Randa Haines' Shut Up and Dance, Songs of the Civil War, John Lennon Live in NY, and Trisha Brown's Accumulation with Water Motor, (directed by Jonathan Demme). Ms. Wise edited music videos by Malcolm McLaren, Cyndi Lauper, Julio Iglesius, Diana Ross, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Yoko Ono. Pam Wise has also edited features (Meteor Man, Hits, Loon), network and cable Movies, Specials, Comedies, Pilots and Series.

Ms. Wise is an A.C.E. Eddie Award Nominee for Best Edited Documentary -Dancemaker.

Sound Recordist Peter Miller has recorded sound for some of the most acclaimed feature documentaries in recent memory. He has worked on three Academy Award winners, including Best Boy, The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table, and He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin.' Among Miller's other feature credits are Barbara Kopple's Wild Man Blues, a film about Woody Allen's New Orleans-style Jazz band's European Tour; The Academy Award-nominated Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse: Best Man (the sequel to Best Boy); The Making of Turandot, Voices of Sarafina; and Dancing For Mr. B: Six Balanchine Ballerinas.

Mr. Miller's television credits are also extensive. He has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards for best sound, winning one for his work on the children's series 3-2-1 Contact. His other television credits include Barbara Kopple's Defending Our Daughters: The Rights of Women in the World for Lifetime Television; Little Warriors, an African adventure program with Lauren Hutton; Nigel Nobl's Shoot The Clock; Porgy and Bess: An American Voice; the NOVA documentary Coma; Height of Courage: The Norman Vaughan Story for National Geographic Explorer; In The Fiddler's House, the Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary about Itzhak Perlman; the Emmy-winning syndicated series Martha Stewart Living; and two Martha Stewart's Home for the Holidays specials.

Seattle Int'l Film Festival (World Premiere) June 1998

Jerusalem International Film Festival July 1998

New Zealand International Film Festival July 1998

Montreal World Film Festival September 1998

Independent Feature Film Market September 1998

Aspen Film Fest September 1998

Mill Valley Film Festival October 1998

Hamptons International Film Festival October 1998

AFI Los Angeles Int'l Film Festival October 1998

Sao Paulo International Film Festival October 1998

IDA Feature Award Winner '98 October 1998

Amsterdam Int'l Documentary Film Festival November 1998

Dance on Camera Film Festival (NYC) December 1998

Media Dance Int'l Grand Prix Carina Ari (Paris) January 1999

1999 Mardi Gras Film Festival (Sydney, Austr) February 1999

Hong Kong International Film Festival April 1999

San Francisco International Film Festival May 1999