Keep Dancing is a short, intimate portrait of the 90yr old dance duo Marge Champion & Donald Saddler. They meet twice a week, in a private dance studio, in midtown Manhattan and just dance. Aside from impressive grace and dexterity, what’s so lovely about these two is just the sincere love for what they do. In an age where irony outsells earnestness, it was just great to work on a project that’s all about joy; the joy of time, of seeing aging as an experience as opposed to a handicap, and just never stopping doing what you do.

The film was produced by Douglas Turnbaugh, who also cranked out the lovely Ballets Russses, and directed by Greg Vander Veer. Greg had been documenting Marge and Donald for close to four years when I was brought on to edit in the summer of ’09. Greg really wanted the film to flow, like a dance and so I got to really dig into what dance means in a different way – weaving together decades upon decades of old musicals, still photographs, early Broadway bootlegs, and Greg’s very simple, very modern documentation of their weekly rehearsals – collapsing time into one fluid movement; the movement of life.

The film premiered in January ’10 at Lincoln Center in New York City and was an official selection at ’10 SXSW Film Festival.

KEEP DANCING

Starring Marge Champion & Donald Saddler.

Produced by Douglas Turnbaugh

Directed by Greg Vander Veer

Edited by Elisa Da Prato