GEAR’s mission is to transcend disciplinary boundaries and expectations of where and how performance is presented. This begins with our award-winning program, Films that Move, which launched in 2011 as Experimental Film Virginia thanks to a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant. It has been a matter of passion and perseverance over the last twelve years to sustain this annual two-week summer festival in a rural community through a pandemic and budget cuts. We are especially grateful to our loyal supporters who give annually and allow us to forge ahead with our vision.

 

Our films bring the people and places of the Eastern Shore to life on the screen. They are woven into the creative stories told by our filmmakers who live, work and create intensely, to produce poetic, visually stunning films with dance as the central storytelling language. 

 

The experience of art offers a precious and necessary moment of human connection, emotion, empathy and acknowledgment. By merging the agendas of art, tourism and economic development, we can go even further with a sustainable future for the arts. Our programs are hybrid, innovative and inclusive, weaving local and global exchange into a seamless conversation that recharges and benefits the artists who participate, the audiences who enjoy and the students who learn. We use the medium of film to reach more audiences, especially younger audiences, and present dance in a way that is fresh and beyond language barriers.