OUR DANCE FILMS
CARRY ME HOME
OUR AWARD-WINNING DANCE FILM ABOUT RETURNING TO THE EARTH
100% original soundtrack
-Best Original Music Award, Utah Dance Film Festival 2023
-Arches Award, Utah Dance Film Festival 2023
-Humanity Award, Utah Dance Film Festival 2023
-Screened at the 2023 Lisbon Screendance Festival
DOCUMENTARY ON RETURN DANCE PROJECT
Documentary about the creation of Return Dance Project and the making of our
award-winning dance film, Carry Me Home
Tree Planting
DANCE Ceremony
Ginkgo Biloba Tree
Filmed May 2024 by Wonderstone Films
Location: The Nature Center at Pia Okwai (Goshute Territory)
Live Music Played on Site
DANCING WITH THE
LARGEST BEING ON EARTH
Released November 2025 | Filmed by Twig Media Lab
Location: Pando Aspen Grove
Song: Eleggua by Samba Fogo
Dancers in the Return Dance Project dance with the largest living organism on Earth by weight: Pando Aspen Graove, affectionately named “The Trembling Giant.”
P A N D O
Every "Tree" you see here is actually part of one great being. We were privileged enough to dance with him. He is suffering now, dying off from imbalance. We came to behold him, experience him, hear his song and dance in gratitude with this great being. This forest used to be cared for by indigenous people who nurtured this great being's life. After 100 years of colonial rule, fire suppression, cattle herding, and the decline of predator species leaving an overpopulation of deer and moose, this forest is now dying. But there are local efforts to restore this great tree. We made this video to connect with this great being, and to draw attention to these imbalances.
We dance with our feet on the Earth and our hands in the soil.
GRATITUDE FOR WATER
Released July 2021 | Filmed & Edited by Twig Media Lab
Location: Ute, Goshute & Paiute Territory (Land colonially known as Millcreek Canyon, Utah)
Song: “Eleggua” by Samba Fogo
SEED CASTING MOVEMENT STUDY
Released December 13, 2021
Location: Ute Territory (Land colonially known as Oakley, Utah)
Song: “Nana” by Rainer Sheurenbrand
“The seeds have the whole culture inside of them. Approach them well, in a way that makes you worth knowing, and they will teach you all you need to know.” -Martin Prechtel
In praise of snow
Filmed Winter 2021
Ute Territory
Tree planting ceremony
Swamp White Oak Tree
Filmed June 2023 by Twig Media Lab
Location: Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley (Goshute Territory)
four sacred things
Released May 2021 | Filmed & Edited by Sugarhouse Studio
Location: Goshute Territory (Land colonially known as Wendover, Utah)
Song: “Nebuofo” by Fatoumata Diawara and Roberto Fonseca
Dance to the desert
Filmed by Joshua Sampson | Mishu Films | September 2021
Location: Anasazi Homelands (Land colonially known as Boulder, Utah).
Song: “Your Sweater” by Samba Fogo
year one in review
A glimpse of all the amazing places we danced in our founding year of 2021.
Song: “Utek Atab” by Samba Fogo
Locations:
Ute, Goshute, Paiute, Shoshone, Anazasi, Fremont, and Navajo Homelands
Colonially known as:
Pando Aspen Grove | Boulder, Utah | Oakley, Utah | Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah | Millcreek Canyon River, Utah | Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah
TREE PLANTING DANCE CEREMONY
Our First Tree Planting Ceremony
June 2021
Liberty Park
Chinkapin Oak