There was one non-negotiable must-see at Bumbershoot Monday, and that was the Lost writers panel. Sorry Say Hi, Black Joe Lewis, Grand Hallway, and the Lonely Forest, you were playing at the wrong time; there was no way to catch any of your sets and also be back at the Leo K. Theatre early enough to snag some seats. I wasn’t alone: the nerds had shown up early, and there was a long line of folks who were just not going to get in. For those of us who made it, however, we were treated to a lively discussion between Entertainment Weekly‘s Lost guru Jeff Jensen and Lost executive producer-scribes Carlton Cuse, Eddy Kitsis, and Adam Horowitz.

The show is three weeks into filming its sixth and final season, which Kitsis claimed would be “all killer, no filler.” The writers showed the three teasers previously viewed at Comic-Con (and subsequently all over the tubes), which seem to indicate that perhaps time has been rebooted following Juliet detonating a hydrogen bomb in the season finale. Everyone will have to wait and see, as Cuse, Kitsis, and Horowitz would only give cagey non-answers as to what exactly will happen this year on (and off) the Island.

Besides that, there was talk of the presence/absence of a writers’ masterplan (it was always there, but subject to change); the difficulties of (and elaborate charts required for) writing non-paradoxical time travel; their collective affection for Ben, Charlie, and Mr. Eko (as well as Horowitz’s love of Billy Dee Williams); and who would win in a battle between Sawyer’s hair and Jin’s abs (the writers said Jin’s abs, but sorry, the correct answer is: Sayid’s luscious manlocks). Each writer picked a favorite scene which was played and then discussed, which served to give a window into the overall Lost-making process. The panel was well worth my festival time.

Phew. With Lost out of the way, I was free to explore the rest of the fest: Family-friendly Recess Monkey had the kiddos dancing with songs about chickens. Metric gave a stripped-down and languid piano-based performance in the KEXP Lounge, in direct contrast to Emily Haines’ rockin’ set later that night. Janelle Monae put on a high-energy funkdafied show, with her trademark bouffant luckily protected from the rain. Akron/Family made a lot of noise for just a little jammy three-piece. Mountain Man Pete Quirk and the rest of the Cave Singers regaled the crowd with odes to his Civil War beloved, and the sun peeked out for the Appalachian hootenanny portion of the evening. Franz Ferdinand were as tight as they’ve ever been, even in the din of Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, Truckasaurus hosted an intimate dance party at the EMP. Surprisingly, Portland Cello Project may have had the most crowd-pleasing set of the day (playing cello versions of the Super Mario Bros theme and Aha’s “Take On Me” will do that), but Australian cutie-pie Lenka was a close second.

A still from “Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha”

Melvin Van Peebles makes movies his own damned way, thanks. So it’s no surprise that in his latest directorial effort, Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy-Footed Mutha (now that‘s a title), he wears his heart on his ragged sleeve. That distinctive passion and drive make Van Peebles’ new movie well worth checking out. (It screens at the Northwest Film Forum September 8 through the 14th.)

Confessions serves as sort of a kinder, gentler companion piece to his breakthrough guerilla mission statement, 1971’s Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song. As in Sweetback, Van Peebles plays a character on a journey of flight and self-discovery.  This time, however, his protagonist finds escape from neighborhood bullies in the pages of travel books and gives in to a wanderlust that takes him through childhood in Chicago, young manhood in New York, drama on the high seas as a merchant marine, and danger at the epicenter of a militant regime in Africa.

In its own ambling way Confessions shows staggering ambition, following its protagonist through four decades of life, and through trials and adventures that’d give Cervantes or Mark Twain head-spins: Van Peebles’ sharp, funny script threads it all together ably. Best of all, the man narrates and plays the main character the whole way through (even as a boy), and his charismatic, direct voice lends the movie heart and spirit.

Indeed, a good deal of Confessions’ appeal lay in its distinctively homemade quality. In addition to directing, acting, and writing, the auteur also edited and produced. Anyone actively making movies with a touch this personal (at the age of 76, no less!) obtains mad props from this corner.

Van Peebles has always reached far, and there are points in Confessions where that reach exceeds his grasp. It’s shot on video, and the seams do occasionally show. The pacing of some of the Africa-set stuff sags, and period detail understandably goes out the window in a few of the scenes. It makes you wish Van Peebles would’ve scraped together enough finances to shoot with real period detail on 35 millimeter film (or even in a higher-def video resolution than what’s on display here), or that he’d pared down the sprawling narrative in favor of a simpler, narration-based feature.

Then again, a bigger budget would’ve taken away the joy of seeing this legendary director work wonders on a (literal) dime. There’s a mob hit early in the movie that’s as imaginatively shot as anything you’ll see in a Scorsese flick, and you’ll marvel at how deftly Van Peebles interweaves stock footage with his own (the guy can edit scenes like nobody’s business). That kind of resourcefulness has helped build Melvin Van Peebles’ legend, and it’s one of the things that makes Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy-Footed Mutha downright inspiring to watch.

It’s one of the things that makes talking to Melvin Van Peebles downright inspiring, too. He sat down to speak at length with The SunBreak about his new film, his storied past, and how he continues to create his own art, obstacles and preconceptions be damned.

“I’m always giving this analogy: a bumblebee is aerodynamically unsound, but he doesn’t know it, he just flies anyway. I didn’t know I couldn’t make movies…I just decided I was gonna make feature films anyway.”

Stay tuned to The SunBreak for the full interview, coming soon…

About five minutes into her dance film Holding This For You, Marissa Rae Niederhauser throws herself against the wall, slides to the floor, and begins trying to untie a key knotted to the front of her dress. But Ben Kasulke‘s camera stays trained to her face; she squints a little as she works, purses her lips before biting the lower one, and only when she’s mostly worked her way through the knot and closed her eyes does the camera trail down to her breast as she pulls the key off the ribbon. She holds it tightly in her hand for a long moment, her face, turned from the camera, slightly out of focus, and then drops it.

“Different stories work better onstage, and different stories work better on film,” explained Niederhauser last week at Smith, near her home on Capitol Hill. “And I’m particularly drawn to small facial gestures and physical details. Onstage, dance is great to have these big, sweeping spacial patterns and geometric forms, kind of like a kaleidoscope. But this was kind of more a psychological drama, so I feel like it’s more important to be able to focus the eye and show people what you want to show them instead of this big, watercolor wash of the entire stage.”

In person, Niederhauser, a 2002 Cornish College graduate with blonde hair, straight-cut bangs, and a puckish smile, doesn’t bear much resemblance to the tortured character in her debut film. Shot in 2006 in a Georgetown warehouse that was being renovated into artist lofts, Holding This For You, her first film, has shown at several festivals internationally since its debut at Northwest Film Forum’s Local Sightings Festival last year, and is returning to Seattle for a showing this Monday at Bumbershoot, as part of a double-bill called “Dreamscapes” at 9 p.m. in the SIFF Cinema.

Niederhauser has danced for a number of Seattle’s most respected choreographers over the last few years, including Maureen Whiting, Zoe Scofield, and Dayna Hanson, and produces her own work, both for film and the stage, under the company name Josephine’s Echopraxia.

Her film work grew out of her struggle to find direction after graduating college. “I guess there was a while after school where I thought that you waited for somebody to recognize how great you were,” she said. “And then when that didn’t happen realized you have to it into your own hands to show people that you’re worth bothering with.”

The film centers on the idea of love as an act of control or oppression, she explains: “Sometimes when love is placed on a person, it’s not a positive thing. It’s more an act of colonization, and it can be kind of a trap. And it can also be given with the intent of changing a person, just like when you’re colonizing a country.”

Influenced by everything from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” to Patti Hearst’s Stockholm Syndrome to the fairy tale of Rapunzel, the film follows the central character as she struggles with issues of control. Shot in a small, red room, it’s claustrophobic and threatening, compounded by Niederhauser’s occasionally violent movement and a few filmic bits inspired by horror films.

One of the central images are keys, as many as 1,500 of which are eventually used as props in the film. “That was a big one,” Niederhauser admits, “the idea of keys entering or penetrating the body, both against the will of the character, and also when the character’s unaware of it.”

In one segment, Niederhauser collapses to the floor as though exhausted and asleep. Suddenly, keys start appearing all around her, crawling up her face and into her mouth. She awakes gagging and vomiting keys. It’s simple stop-motion animation, but it’s effective and demonstrates part of the appeal film has to dancers and choreographers.

Several years ago, Niederhauser began collaborating with Kasulke through opportunities at the NW Film Forum. Dance film has long been a major part of European experimental film, but in the US it’s been a minor trend except in Seattle over the last decade, where it’s commonplace. And almost every conversation about dance film here leads back to Kasulke, whose cinematography for Lynn Shelton’s Humpday has earned him wide exposure in the last year.

“He really has a good eye for following movement, and a really good instinct as to where energy is going to travel in the body next,” Niederhauser said. “So, a lot of camera people, when they follow dance, will kind of back up, to try to get the whole picture—which you totally need sometimes! But he’s also really good at just being able to follow the energy line.”

Niederhauser credits the Film Forum, along with 911 Media Arts, for most of the resurgence of dance film, as well as creating new opportunities for her as a dancer and choreographer.

“I think there’s a really amazing film community here that is open about working in experimental forms, that is open to working with dancers, that’s open to working with women,” she said. “I think we’re very lucky to have organizations like Northwest Film Forum and 911 Media Arts. I think it’s kind of scary because I think they’re both kind of struggling right now, everyone is. But one of the reasons there are so many dance films is there are these organizations that make it possible for people with little experience and not a huge budget to have the help and resources that they need.”

Kasulke also filmed her newest work, still in post-production, called Tracings. As for Niederhauser, she can next be seen performing with Degenerate Art Ensemble in Sonic Tales next month at the Moore Theatre.

Episode 4 of this season of America’s Best Dance Crew was on last night, and this week’s episode was Bollywood-themed, with each troupe incorporating a form of Indian dance into their routine. Local crew Massive Monkees ended up with bhangra and knew that they would have to “put the b-boy into Bollywood.” Since they got ragged on by the judges last week for only one member doing their most difficult move, the Monkees were eager to bring it on, step it up 2 the streets,  get served, etc.  In their performance (starting at 2:05 in the video above), they hit the ground running, with footwork of fury, tons of spins and crabwalks, and even the occasional crotchgrab.

So sez the judges: JC Chasez liked that in this routine the dancers were “constantly moving and working the floor.” Shane Sparks said it was one of the “best performances they had done in a while,” and that they took it to another level, with so much of the choreography being “so sick.” Lil Mama agreed, saying they had “an energetic bounce from beginning to end.” Once again, Massive Monkees weren’t in the bottom two, so even after a lackluster performance last week, they’ve rebounded nicely, and they’re back to being one of the judges’ favorites.