A trailer to the 64-min poetic documentary about Emilie Conrad, the visionary founder of Continuum, by Hanna Heiting. Full film: vimeo.com/286615713

In Em Moves, filmmaker Hanna Heiting creates a poetic tribute to the life and work of Emilie Conrad, visionary founder of Continuum, a somatic movement practice. Hanna’s artistic decisions are those of an insider who lives the movement she is filming. Her visual compositions, her informed stillness, her directorial attention, all mirror and follow Emilie Conrad’s life-long exploration of movement in an unfolding call and response. There is a pulsing life rhythm to the film’s orchestration that awakens the viewer’s own somatic awareness.

The film captures the full range of this somatics genius by juxtaposing Emilie’s movement with her healing work. The contrasting scenes of her reading original works on Kafka, Callas and Nijinsky, walking around her Brooklyn neighborhood remembering childhood pains and leading Continuum workshops with intoxicating enthusiasm, create a sense of the full complexity of her personality and the passion of her vision.

Em Moves is an intimate love letter to a life-long teacher, an astute commentary on life and art, and an intellectually sophisticated tribute to the vision of this extraordinary pioneer. Em Moves is for people who know Continuum, for people who want to know Continuum, and simply for people who want to stay alive. Em Moves invites the mystery of the unknown, the inhale and exhale that are the heartbeat of Continuum, to live on screen. This stunning film will inspire anyone who walks and breathes on this planet.

Rebecca Mark
Professor of American Literature at Tulane University