Keep the Dance Alive — Music, dance and trance practices of Ovahimba and related peoples of Namibia and Angola. A genesis of how these pratices form an integral part of life from birth to death. From youth play dances, to imitating spirit possession as a means of learning, to singing the praises of a defunct hero, song, dance and trance flows seemlessly from everyday life to ritual performances.  More information: Rina Sherman learnt about filmmaking with Jean Rouch, who one day told her: “You are untameable. You are both my most faithful and unfaithful disciple”. Exiled from South Africa, her country of birth, she settled in France in 1984. She has made some twenty films, of which six about African rituals. The Cinémathèque de la Danse presents her most recent work, KEEP THE DANCE ALIVE, in her presence (June 30th, 2008). Rina Sherman does not limit herself to filming the relics of rituals; in this case, those of the Ovahimba and other related peoples of Namibia and Angola. At a time in the world when everything is recorded and photographed, Rina Sherman, by taking the time to live with these peoples (seven years), by taking close-up shots of these dances, by alternating low-key and dramatic moments, films that singular moment when memory cedes, setting free strong pictorial images filled with freshness in which these practices become contemporary, current. And that is why she does not only film the rituals, but a never-ending dance that flows through the children, the adolescents, the adults and the sages. This crossing of the ages touches upon a more discreet continuity, that which makes human beings one of a kind. Bernard Rémy, Cinémathèque de la danse, Paris, 2008