Something New

Something Different, Something Needed, Something New

Joseph East

You Can Now Own “I WILL DANCE,” the Documentary

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IWillDance-FB-Banner with festival

Before there was New Expression, there was Random Acts of Theatre Company (affectionately, RATCo).   The story of this program at its flagship location in Selma, Alabama, was artfully told through a documentary called I WILL DANCE.  The program lives on today as New Expression and the film can now live on as a household name as online downloads of the film are NOW AVAILABLE!

You can rent or buy, and all proceeds will go to the programs of Something New.

Check out the film trailer and purchase the movie at www.IWILLDANCEMovie.com.

Film Festival Director: Joseph East

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Joseph East, mentor, director and a driving force behind the Denver New Expressions Film Festival
Joseph East, mentor, director and a driving force behind the Denver New Expressions Film Festival

New Expression Denver is working on its first ever Film Festival.  The youth are loving it as they learn by doing from concepting to storyboarding to directing and shooting to editing.  The  person behind it all?  Meet Joseph East.

Early years

Can you guess which one is Joseph?
Can you guess which one is Joseph?

I always loved movies, and from an early age wanted to tell stories.

In middle and high school I found an outlet for telling stories in theater, performing in musicals like Wizard of Oz, Fiddler on the Roof and Into the Woods.

As a kid, I wanted to make my own movies, but only got so far because of limited resources.  As I got older, I began to learn the impact movies could have on people–their ability to touch hearts, spark conversations and ignite change.

young-joseph

At first I thought I wanted to make big Hollywood movies like the ones I loved growing up, so I enrolled at the Colorado Film School. But while at school I discovered documentaries– stories about the struggles, joys and journeys of real people. Documentaries introduced me to a whole new world, and I decided to pursue this new world wholeheartedly.

I Will Dance

IWD-joseph

That led to Selma, AL and the story of RATCo (now New Expression). For three years on a journey that took me from Selma to New York City, I shot and edited a feature-length documentary that became I Will Dance, a story about a group of young people breaking cycles and defying statistics through music, dance and spoken word poetry. The documentary has toured festivals and broadcast on PBS in Colorado.

In many ways, Selma changed my life. There I met my wife, Alicia (also a writer and producer for I Will Dance). [Read more…] about Film Festival Director: Joseph East