TRT: 23 min  HD, NTSC

A film by Anuradha Rana and Laurie Little , Variations follows three artists distinctive for how they define ability. Musician Chris Foreman, dancer Kris Lenzo and fine artist Riva Lehrer reveal their processes as they talk about the influence of their lives on their practices.

We are honored to be screening VARIATIONS at the The 2014 Newport Beach Film Festival!  Sunday, April 27th at 1:30PM in Triangle 1! See you at the fest!

Variations follows three artists distinctive for how they define ability. Musician Chris Foreman, dancer Kris Lenzo and painter Riva Lehrer reveal the processes behind their art and the influence of their lives on their practices. The film illuminates the varied experience of disability, the beauty of human diversity, and the joy in disability pride.

Kris Lenzo is a dancer, choreographer and an educator at the Momenta Dance Company where he collaborates with dancer Ginger Lane to teach young people how to create beautifully choreographed dances. The group, EveryBody Can Dance, have a variety of abilities and create amazing body sculptures with their wheelchairs and ballet slippers as they move and transform to tell enlightening and funny stories about life.

Riva Lehrer is an artist, educator and activist. Her paintings and renderings have been exhibited internationally and her collection of portraits, Circle Stories, include overtly personal and political themes. Riva was born with Spina Bifida and wears big shoes that some goth kids on Belmont recently mistook as a trippy fashion statement. For Lehrer, the disabled body is intensely beautiful—memorable, unexpected, and lived in with great self-awareness. These are not bodies that are taken for granted or left unexplored. This beauty has often stayed unseen despite the constant, invasive public stare.

Chris Forman, is a brilliant musician, educator and the Hammond B3 jazz organist at the Green Mill in Chicago. He plays with the Deep Blue Organ Trio every Tuesday night from 9-1 AM, he does a solo show for the Friday Happy Hour and plays with Jazz vocalist, Kimberley Gordon every Sunday night. His fingers glide deftly over braille musical notation as he quickly memorizes the tablature to interpret his next phrase onto the keys of the piano in his classical piano class.