Trash Dance
Andrew Garrison
Synopsis
Sometimes inspiration can be found in unexpected places. Choreographer Allison Orr finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks, and in the men and women who pick up our trash. Filmmaker Andrew Garrison follows Orr as she joins city sanitation workers on their daily routes to listen, learn, and ultimately to convince them to collaborate in a unique dance performance. Hard working, often carrying a second job, their lives are already full with work, family and dreams of their own. But some step forward, and after months of rehearsal, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks perform an extraordinary spectacle. On an abandoned airport runway, thousands of people show up to see how in the world a garbage truck can "dance."
Director's Bio
Andrew Garrison is an independent filmmaker based in Austin, Texas, who works in both documentary and fiction. His past films include the documentary feature THIRD WARD TX (2007) and the narrative triptych THE WILGUS STORIES (2000), both of which premiered at SXSW and aired on PBS. Additional films include the award-winning shorts, FAT MONROE (1990) and NIGHT RIDE (1994). Garrison’s work has earned him Guggenheim, Rockefeller, NEA and AFI Fellowships, and his films have screened at Sundance, SXSW, Berlin International Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. He is an Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media Production at The University of Texas at Austin. Garrison was born and raised in Hollywood, Florida, and has been working in independent film since graduating from Antioch College in 1974. That year he co- founded the Dayton Community Media Workshop in Ohio with Academy Award- nominated filmmakers, Julia Reichert and Jim Klein, and four other friends. He was later invited to work at Appalshop, the acclaimed documentary collective in the heart of the coalfields in Eastern Kentucky, where he spent more than a dozen years as a cinematographer, as well as producing and directing his own work. In addition to directing, he continues to freelance as cinematographer and sound recordist. Garrison has worked for FRONTLINE, MTV, ART 21, Charles Guggenheim, and the BBC, and has been a sound recordist for interviews with Martin Scorsese, George W. Bush, Pete Seeger, Michael Cain, Karl Rove, Billy Bragg, Eldridge Cleaver, Eva Longoria, among many others.
