Follow Bettina Escauriza interview some of the powerful performers that were a part of 2024's Fringe Arts Festival.

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charly Santagado. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charly below.

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to see some shows at the Thessaloniki Fringe Festival. Fringe takes place in different cities around the world and hosts performing arts works primarily by emerging artists. The environment is very friendly and exciting. We were particularly intrigued by a dance called “Self Help” created and performed by Charly & Eriel Santagado, the founders and directors of mignolo dance.

This past weekend, the second week of the NJ Film Festival offered in-person and online screenings of several films from diverse backgrounds, demographics and distinct directions. These films, all unique, presented compelling messages and visions.

mignolo dance presented a diverse evening of dance works at Arts On Site on October 1st, 2023. Six live works and one screendance created imaginative worlds of movement based on concrete ideas and feelings.

Under their company name of mignolo dance, Charly & Eriel Santagado continue a sisterly collaboration that started from a very young age. Fast forward to and beyond the 2020 COVID pandemic lockdown, and it would seem you have a choreographing duo that perhaps sees things a little differently than before.

But as sisters they began, and as sisters they continue. Though things change as life moves forward, some things remain to remind us where we came from.

Watch, and listen to their story

A reinvention of an Agatha Christie classic, Soldier Island is a 65-minute screendance period piece that offers a new perspective on the murder mystery genre.

Charly and Eriel Santagdo’s Soldier Island -- a dance adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None -- screens at the Fall 2022 New Jersey Film Festival on September 23. Here is my interview with Charly Santagdo:

Nigrin: Why did you make Soldier Island?

Santagado: We made Soldier Island out of a burning desire to create art together in the face of the isolation caused by the pandemic. We were itching to create in a new way, a way that captured the strangeness of the times, but still enabled us to connect with other artists.

"All the films we are screening at the Fall 2022 New Jersey Film Festival are special as they went through a rigorous judging process, but I personally really enjoyed Charly Santagado's experimental dance feature Soldier Island which is based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None,” said Rutgers University Professor Albert G. Nigrin, the Executive Director/Curator for the New Jersey Film Festival. “It is shot in the Drake House in Plainfield and at the Jersey Shore too. I like Charly's quirky sensibility.”

Soldier Island and Cabeco Fall 2022 New Jersey Film Festival Q+A with Soldier Island Directors Charly and Eriel Santagado, Cabeco Director Brian James Crewe and Festival Director Al Nigrin.

Cabeco – Brian James Crewe (Studio City, California)

A passionate Argentine Tango dance fantasy featuring a woman exploring the sensual and dangerous possibilities presented by a potential new lover. 2022; 8 min.

Soldier Island – Charly Santagado (Metuchen, New Jersey)

Soldier Island is a feature length screen dance loosely based on the best-selling murder mystery novel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. In the novel, ten characters from various, seemingly unrelated walks of life are invited by an unknown host to spend a weekend at a mysterious mansion on Soldier Island. Within a few hours of arrival, the guests start to be killed off one by one. The death of the guests follow the trajectory of a rhyme that’s framed and hung in each bedroom of the house. 2022; 65 min.

To buy tickets to this screening copy this link to your browser:

https://watch.eventive.org/newjerseyfilmfestivalfall2022

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- The Fall 2022 New Jersey Film Festival will take place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between September 9-October 16. The Festival will be a hybrid one as it will be presented online as well as doing select in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. Each ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings. The in-person screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 7:00pm on their show date. There will also be special Filmmaker Introductions and Q+A Sessions available for many of the films.