Wonderland, I Love

Directed and Choreographed by Angelina Jimenez
Camera work and Cinematography by Isabella Jimenez and Savannah Sclafani

For my creative project, I decided to choreograph a series of short dances and exhibit them in a personal short film in response to Central Park’s Alice In Wonderland sculpture. This sculpture is dedicated to the children of New York and exhibits the most famous symbols of childhood and curiosity in literature, Alice and her friends from Wonderland. To me, this piece of public art serves as a reminder to keep a part of your childhood with you, and to never stop exploring your own Wonderland, even within the busy grown-up lifestyles in New York. The piece that I made takes this idea of staying curious and keeping childhood and applies it to my personal life, as I tell a story of growing out of childhood, learning what to let go of, and realizing what to hold on to, all to Anson Seabra’s song Welcome to Wonderland

I, like many others, danced and performed on stage throughout all of my childhood. Yet I always understood that no matter how strong my passion for performance was, my dance career would end the minute I turned 18 and graduated from high school. At that point, all that would matter is my development into a successful adult. As I have grown to realize though, it is important to not completely detach yourself from your passions. Performing arts may no longer be a large part of my life like it was in my childhood, but I still carry it with me in the ways that I can. Just as Alice encourages her audience to wander through Wonderland through the curious eyes of a child, I have found myself maintaining a childish curiosity in exploring my personal Wonderland, my passion for performance and dance.

I came up with the idea to create this piece upon hearing Seabra’s song and realizing that it perfectly bridges my relationship with performing and the story of Alice in Wonderland, as it describes a beautiful trip to Wonderland and the memories of the experience that the visitor then has to look back on and grow from. In choreographing and creating a short film for this song, I started by visualizing a plot and storyboarding the different scenes that incorporate both dance and still or subtle scenery. I went on to make choreography through a series of improvisational exercises, making sure to utilize different intensity levels in the dynamics based on where in the story the choreography would lay. The dance was filmed in a variety of locations that pay respect to the theme of nature and fantastical environments shown in Alice in Wonderland. These dance scenes are then framed shots that tell the story of a past and future in dance, pivoting around the decision to not completely give up on passion, but rather to work towards morphing it into something new that continues to serve character. Important motifs that appear throughout the piece include a pair of clean pointe shoes (representing underlying passion), picture frames and loose images (representing memories and reminders of the past and future), and post-its (representing the decisions made in keeping a portion of “Wonderland”).

This piece was developed with great help from my sister and one of my best friends, Isabella Jimenez and Savannah Sclafani, both of whom have experience in film-making that I am still working towards. We were excited to combine our passions into an art piece that represents the importance of clinging onto your childhood and your passions, as it’s not really worth it to completely grow up is it?