Dancing Nowhere
New York City, New York | Film Feature
Comedy, Satire
Dancing Nowhere is a dark comedy on navigating sobriety, pandemic posturing and isolation. I wrote it in 2020 while doing the same. Communities collide: 90s club kids + goths, new scenesters; EDM to Dimes Square, middle aged miserables, Covid doubters, 12 steppers. Come along and find your people.
Dancing Nowhere
New York City, New York | Film Feature
Comedy, Satire
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $19,921 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
53 supporters | followers
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Dancing Nowhere is a dark comedy on navigating sobriety, pandemic posturing and isolation. I wrote it in 2020 while doing the same. Communities collide: 90s club kids + goths, new scenesters; EDM to Dimes Square, middle aged miserables, Covid doubters, 12 steppers. Come along and find your people.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Dancing Nowhere is like a New York Night: the rush and the weird collide, as does unpredictability... and powders. To have one of these nights in the midst of the Covid pandemic shutdown is more imagination than document..It's an adventure viewers can be invited to join. A more druggy After Hours, a less PC Party Girl, and all the while a raw and unsettling character study of a perimenopausal, stagnant party girl.
Dancing Nowhere is a dark comedy set in 2020 NYC, where isolation, identity, and denial collide. The film follows a loosely connected web of characters navigating sobriety, social exile, infection and virtual moral action. Former 90s club kids, Dimes Square skeptics, burnouts, Covid conspiracists, and 12-step survivors all orbit the bizarro world of pandemic-time NYC.
Dancing Nowhere moves between studio apartments, empty dance floors, Zoom rooms, and a lot of parks. The result is an oddly funny and energetic ephemeral experience inside some peculiarly particular spaces and characters.
WHY ME?
Because I lived it. Emotionally,not literally. I wrote Dancing Nowhere in 2020 while navigating isolation, sobriety, and the strange psychological terrain of the pandemic. I live inside the intersection of the communities the lead character overlaps in: Recovery, the 90s Club Scene, the current Downtown Scene and Generation X. I’m drawn to characters who exist on the margins of their own lives, and I understand the push-pull between nihilism and reinvention. This story comes from a personal, unfiltered place, and I’m committed to telling it with honesty, absurdity, and discomfort intact.
WHY NOW?
We’re still metabolizing and living what the pandemic did to us: socially, mentally, and culturally. Dancing Nowhere captures that suspended, surreal moment when reality blurred and people performed versions of themselves to cope. Life and work went online, and with it came performed politics, performed personalities, and distance from reality. And they are still happening today. Dancing Nowhere is not a flashback; it's a reckoning. Albeit a fun one.
FOR WHO?
For anyone with lived experience inside the communities we depict: anyone who has abused drugs, anyone who has been in recovery, anyone who experienced the 90s NY club scene and anyone inside the club scene of today. For anyone who is a middle aged (wo)man; emotionally immature, stunted, lonely and starved for nihilistic fun. For all the low key losers in life. For anyone exhausted by the absurd politics of Covid-19. For audiences who appreciate dark comedic tension, cringe inducing characters we haven't seen before, and the fun of an endless New York Night.
How You Can Help
We’ve taken Dancing Nowhere as far as we can on our own. With a few days of filming left and post-production ahead, we’re seeking support to help us carry the film across the finish line.
Your contribution will directly support:
- Locations & permits
- Fair wages for cast and crew
- Grip & electric equipment
- Catering and craft services
- Post-production (editing, color, sound design, score, ADR, final finish)
- Festival submission and distribution costs
Every dollar goes toward completing the film with the care and quality it deserves. Thank you for being part of bringing Dancing Nowhere to life.
PLEDGE
Your donation will help bring this film to life, supporting both our shoot, post-production efforts and distribution once the film has been completed. Any amount makes a difference as we must secure 80% of our goal in order to keep any funds raised. Your support means the entire world, without you, this film wouldn’t be possible.
SHARE
Word is BOND. The more people that know, the better! Let's make it more than a cool secret project. Share our campaign with likeminded cool kids, friends, family, and anyone who might be interested in learning more about our project and supporting our efforts.
FOLLOW
Click the Follow button at the top of our crowdfunding page, it's free, keeps us on more people's radar and helps us unlock important platform benefits!
Follow us on instagram for special info and updates:
@dancing.nowhere.themovie
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew
Costs $8,650
These funds will go to the extremely dedicated and talented award winning Crew. It takes a village!
Gear
Costs $6,350
These funds will go towards our equipment rentals, including camera, lights, sound.
Locations
Costs $650
These funds will be used for the location rental fees and permits.
Cratfy & Meals
Costs $1,250
We love keeping our talent and crew happy and well fed!
Post Production
Costs $3,000
We've created the film, let's put it all together so we can show you!
Talent
Costs $5,000
Help bring our film to life with our incredible cast!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
I'm Jessica. I'm a movie theater rat turned filmmaker. And I am a part of the story that Dancing Nowhere tells.
My first school was the textbook and the TV: Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, watching late night movies in the 1980s, and Siskel & Ebert. My second school (middle school - high school) was repertory (AFI Kennedy Center, Smithsonian) and arthouse theaters (Biograph, Key...) in Washington, DC.
Attending NYU Film School (third school), I just wanted to keep watching movies, and writing. So I majored in Cinema Studies.
I still watch a lot of movies, with a lot of people (some of the same ones for decades) in New York City. A lot of them now make (awesome) movies, and have done so for years. So when I shared the screenplay, some friends urged me to take a stab at directing. I knew it could only happen if I found a crew as impressive as those who make the type of movies I wish I did.
Meeting someone who believed in the film, and being introduced by them to Director of Photography Leo Zhang, was key to us ever making this movie. Leo has a keen understanding of the style and intent of the movie. He's been a key partner in facilitating this vision. Leo's aesthetic talents and tastes are vast, and he has put his own stamp on the picture. There is a reason Leo is in demand and working constantly. The camerawork in Dancing Nowhere evokes urban tension, heightened exchanges, darkly comedic personalities, darkwave and vaporwave dance floors, and the absurdity of the pandemic and NYC at large.
I cast the film myself. I worked as a Talent Agent in NYC for over two decades. Nearly all the actors were ones I at some point had the honor of working with or representing. It's a dream cast of accomplished well-known actors, and already hot newer actors I've been a fan of.
--ROSE LUARDO is the aggrieved ex 90s club-kid and mid life miserable lead role: MARNIE. Rose is EVERYTHING. Film actress, creator of insane characters, performance artist, stage actress, comedy innovator, vaporwave band member, dancer. She has made Marnie a singular and complicated and character.
SCOTT COHEN is her recovery friend JAKE. Scott is a massively talented actor I could not be more lucky to know and to have in our movie. You know him from: Gilmore Girls (series regular), Necessary Roughness (series regular) The Carrie Diaries (series regular) and recently The Penguin. Hit Indie films like Kissing Jessica Stein (male lead) NYFF and Cannes Director Fortnight 2023 The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something has Passed (male lead)
--WILL JANOWITZ is her best boy bar friend -- JOSH. Known for being phenomenal in his roles on Sopranos (Meadow's long time boyfriend "Finn"), Boardwalk Empire, Tribeca Film Fest hit Proof of Concept, Bang Bang which he also wrote. Will is also a talented film producer- he won the Film Independent Spirit Award this year for Best Feature (!) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture (!) for the beautiful film Train Dreams.
--LAUREN SERVIDEO (films Rap World, Out of Order, Fame and other Four Letter Words (2025 Tribeca). Already a downtown star, instagram star and 'New York Nico' favorite, Lauren Servideo is a phenomenal character actress and phenomenal as Marnie's complicated friend JEN. Check out her own character creations @servideo
--KEITH POULSON is Marnie's bartender friend. (Even when she's sober!) Keith has had leading roles and many more in many independent films you know and love. Zach Clark's Little Sister, the films of Bob Byington, the films of Alex Ross Perry (Golden Exits, Her Smell, Pavements, etc) the films of Michael M Bilandic (Hellaware, Project Space 13) and many more. Keith rocks.
--FABRIZIO BRIENZA I'm a big fan of Fabrizio! Recently he's terrific as Nico on Godfather of Harlem. Another 'New York Nico' favorite in the cast! Gorgeous, charming, an extremely talented actor; Fabrizio is a true artist. He also has created his own unique persona and aesthetic as a notorious NYC nightlife public figure meets performance artist in his influential social media presence.
--KATIE CHONACAS is wild child + sweet party girl Delia, one of Marnie's key friendships. Katie is known for an amazing scene with her and Nicholas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, her many television and independent film credits as well as the podcast she created and hosts - "She's All Over the Place" and her voice acting performances as leads in narrative audio dramas and fan favorite roles in hit video games . Katie is also a recording artist who produces and performs awesome music..jpg)
--MADELINE QUINN is Marnie's young Dimes Square adjacent bar friend Brynne. She co-wrote and co-starred in the stellar hit independent film The Scary of Sixty-First, with director Dasha Nekrasova. Maddie has a wonderfully unique voice in her writing, her worldview and her performances, and it's why she's already a downtown star.
--CHARLOTTE ERCOLI is coke girl with a heart of gold, Sammi. Charlotte is a great actor, a great singer, composer, and also a fantastic filmmaker. Her feature film Fior Di Latte (starsTim Heidecker, Julia Fox, Kevin Kline..)was the highlight of the last Tribeca FF. Wholly original comedy/ musical, homage to musicals and absurdity, I can't describe it aptly but it's tremendously good as is Charlotte.
--SHAWN PARSONS is a hell of a good actor you enjoyed watching on Justified (as "The Pig"), opposite Nick Offerman in the film The Gunfighter and as Sam in the TV Series Containment. In our film he plays Marnie's somewhat happily doused lover Walter. Shawn is also a brilliant singer and songwriter.
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These are only a few of many ace actors in our cast!
We also had the good fortune to connect with experienced and creative producer Janet Huey. She is multi talented; a great cheerleader and a trustworthy leader who guides us well.
This may be our first time working all together as a team, but it's an inevitable trajectory of lived experiences, and an overlap of personal and professional relationships in the film and acting circles which brought us together. Ours is a shared instinct and collective approach. The darkly comic worldview and sometimes bizarrely compelling characters of this film are...contagious. With your support, Dancing Nowhere will resonate and be the connective tissue to bring more of us together. Let's go dancing.
Writer/Director/Producer: Jessica Felrice
Producer: Janet Huey
Director of Photography: Leo Zhang
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Dancing Nowhere is like a New York Night: the rush and the weird collide, as does unpredictability... and powders. To have one of these nights in the midst of the Covid pandemic shutdown is more imagination than document..It's an adventure viewers can be invited to join. A more druggy After Hours, a less PC Party Girl, and all the while a raw and unsettling character study of a perimenopausal, stagnant party girl.
Dancing Nowhere is a dark comedy set in 2020 NYC, where isolation, identity, and denial collide. The film follows a loosely connected web of characters navigating sobriety, social exile, infection and virtual moral action. Former 90s club kids, Dimes Square skeptics, burnouts, Covid conspiracists, and 12-step survivors all orbit the bizarro world of pandemic-time NYC.
Dancing Nowhere moves between studio apartments, empty dance floors, Zoom rooms, and a lot of parks. The result is an oddly funny and energetic ephemeral experience inside some peculiarly particular spaces and characters.
WHY ME?
Because I lived it. Emotionally,not literally. I wrote Dancing Nowhere in 2020 while navigating isolation, sobriety, and the strange psychological terrain of the pandemic. I live inside the intersection of the communities the lead character overlaps in: Recovery, the 90s Club Scene, the current Downtown Scene and Generation X. I’m drawn to characters who exist on the margins of their own lives, and I understand the push-pull between nihilism and reinvention. This story comes from a personal, unfiltered place, and I’m committed to telling it with honesty, absurdity, and discomfort intact.
WHY NOW?
We’re still metabolizing and living what the pandemic did to us: socially, mentally, and culturally. Dancing Nowhere captures that suspended, surreal moment when reality blurred and people performed versions of themselves to cope. Life and work went online, and with it came performed politics, performed personalities, and distance from reality. And they are still happening today. Dancing Nowhere is not a flashback; it's a reckoning. Albeit a fun one.
FOR WHO?
For anyone with lived experience inside the communities we depict: anyone who has abused drugs, anyone who has been in recovery, anyone who experienced the 90s NY club scene and anyone inside the club scene of today. For anyone who is a middle aged (wo)man; emotionally immature, stunted, lonely and starved for nihilistic fun. For all the low key losers in life. For anyone exhausted by the absurd politics of Covid-19. For audiences who appreciate dark comedic tension, cringe inducing characters we haven't seen before, and the fun of an endless New York Night.
How You Can Help
We’ve taken Dancing Nowhere as far as we can on our own. With a few days of filming left and post-production ahead, we’re seeking support to help us carry the film across the finish line.
Your contribution will directly support:
- Locations & permits
- Fair wages for cast and crew
- Grip & electric equipment
- Catering and craft services
- Post-production (editing, color, sound design, score, ADR, final finish)
- Festival submission and distribution costs
Every dollar goes toward completing the film with the care and quality it deserves. Thank you for being part of bringing Dancing Nowhere to life.
PLEDGE
Your donation will help bring this film to life, supporting both our shoot, post-production efforts and distribution once the film has been completed. Any amount makes a difference as we must secure 80% of our goal in order to keep any funds raised. Your support means the entire world, without you, this film wouldn’t be possible.
SHARE
Word is BOND. The more people that know, the better! Let's make it more than a cool secret project. Share our campaign with likeminded cool kids, friends, family, and anyone who might be interested in learning more about our project and supporting our efforts.
FOLLOW
Click the Follow button at the top of our crowdfunding page, it's free, keeps us on more people's radar and helps us unlock important platform benefits!
Follow us on instagram for special info and updates:
@dancing.nowhere.themovie
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Crew
Costs $8,650
These funds will go to the extremely dedicated and talented award winning Crew. It takes a village!
Gear
Costs $6,350
These funds will go towards our equipment rentals, including camera, lights, sound.
Locations
Costs $650
These funds will be used for the location rental fees and permits.
Cratfy & Meals
Costs $1,250
We love keeping our talent and crew happy and well fed!
Post Production
Costs $3,000
We've created the film, let's put it all together so we can show you!
Talent
Costs $5,000
Help bring our film to life with our incredible cast!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
I'm Jessica. I'm a movie theater rat turned filmmaker. And I am a part of the story that Dancing Nowhere tells.
My first school was the textbook and the TV: Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, watching late night movies in the 1980s, and Siskel & Ebert. My second school (middle school - high school) was repertory (AFI Kennedy Center, Smithsonian) and arthouse theaters (Biograph, Key...) in Washington, DC.
Attending NYU Film School (third school), I just wanted to keep watching movies, and writing. So I majored in Cinema Studies.
I still watch a lot of movies, with a lot of people (some of the same ones for decades) in New York City. A lot of them now make (awesome) movies, and have done so for years. So when I shared the screenplay, some friends urged me to take a stab at directing. I knew it could only happen if I found a crew as impressive as those who make the type of movies I wish I did.
Meeting someone who believed in the film, and being introduced by them to Director of Photography Leo Zhang, was key to us ever making this movie. Leo has a keen understanding of the style and intent of the movie. He's been a key partner in facilitating this vision. Leo's aesthetic talents and tastes are vast, and he has put his own stamp on the picture. There is a reason Leo is in demand and working constantly. The camerawork in Dancing Nowhere evokes urban tension, heightened exchanges, darkly comedic personalities, darkwave and vaporwave dance floors, and the absurdity of the pandemic and NYC at large.
I cast the film myself. I worked as a Talent Agent in NYC for over two decades. Nearly all the actors were ones I at some point had the honor of working with or representing. It's a dream cast of accomplished well-known actors, and already hot newer actors I've been a fan of.
--ROSE LUARDO is the aggrieved ex 90s club-kid and mid life miserable lead role: MARNIE. Rose is EVERYTHING. Film actress, creator of insane characters, performance artist, stage actress, comedy innovator, vaporwave band member, dancer. She has made Marnie a singular and complicated and character.
SCOTT COHEN is her recovery friend JAKE. Scott is a massively talented actor I could not be more lucky to know and to have in our movie. You know him from: Gilmore Girls (series regular), Necessary Roughness (series regular) The Carrie Diaries (series regular) and recently The Penguin. Hit Indie films like Kissing Jessica Stein (male lead) NYFF and Cannes Director Fortnight 2023 The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something has Passed (male lead)
--WILL JANOWITZ is her best boy bar friend -- JOSH. Known for being phenomenal in his roles on Sopranos (Meadow's long time boyfriend "Finn"), Boardwalk Empire, Tribeca Film Fest hit Proof of Concept, Bang Bang which he also wrote. Will is also a talented film producer- he won the Film Independent Spirit Award this year for Best Feature (!) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture (!) for the beautiful film Train Dreams.
--LAUREN SERVIDEO (films Rap World, Out of Order, Fame and other Four Letter Words (2025 Tribeca). Already a downtown star, instagram star and 'New York Nico' favorite, Lauren Servideo is a phenomenal character actress and phenomenal as Marnie's complicated friend JEN. Check out her own character creations @servideo
--KEITH POULSON is Marnie's bartender friend. (Even when she's sober!) Keith has had leading roles and many more in many independent films you know and love. Zach Clark's Little Sister, the films of Bob Byington, the films of Alex Ross Perry (Golden Exits, Her Smell, Pavements, etc) the films of Michael M Bilandic (Hellaware, Project Space 13) and many more. Keith rocks.
--FABRIZIO BRIENZA I'm a big fan of Fabrizio! Recently he's terrific as Nico on Godfather of Harlem. Another 'New York Nico' favorite in the cast! Gorgeous, charming, an extremely talented actor; Fabrizio is a true artist. He also has created his own unique persona and aesthetic as a notorious NYC nightlife public figure meets performance artist in his influential social media presence.
--KATIE CHONACAS is wild child + sweet party girl Delia, one of Marnie's key friendships. Katie is known for an amazing scene with her and Nicholas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, her many television and independent film credits as well as the podcast she created and hosts - "She's All Over the Place" and her voice acting performances as leads in narrative audio dramas and fan favorite roles in hit video games . Katie is also a recording artist who produces and performs awesome music.
--MADELINE QUINN is Marnie's young Dimes Square adjacent bar friend Brynne. She co-wrote and co-starred in the stellar hit independent film The Scary of Sixty-First, with director Dasha Nekrasova. Maddie has a wonderfully unique voice in her writing, her worldview and her performances, and it's why she's already a downtown star.
--CHARLOTTE ERCOLI is coke girl with a heart of gold, Sammi. Charlotte is a great actor, a great singer, composer, and also a fantastic filmmaker. Her feature film Fior Di Latte (starsTim Heidecker, Julia Fox, Kevin Kline..)was the highlight of the last Tribeca FF. Wholly original comedy/ musical, homage to musicals and absurdity, I can't describe it aptly but it's tremendously good as is Charlotte.
--SHAWN PARSONS is a hell of a good actor you enjoyed watching on Justified (as "The Pig"), opposite Nick Offerman in the film The Gunfighter and as Sam in the TV Series Containment. In our film he plays Marnie's somewhat happily doused lover Walter. Shawn is also a brilliant singer and songwriter.
These are only a few of many ace actors in our cast!
We also had the good fortune to connect with experienced and creative producer Janet Huey. She is multi talented; a great cheerleader and a trustworthy leader who guides us well.
This may be our first time working all together as a team, but it's an inevitable trajectory of lived experiences, and an overlap of personal and professional relationships in the film and acting circles which brought us together. Ours is a shared instinct and collective approach. The darkly comic worldview and sometimes bizarrely compelling characters of this film are...contagious. With your support, Dancing Nowhere will resonate and be the connective tissue to bring more of us together. Let's go dancing.
Writer/Director/Producer: Jessica Felrice
Producer: Janet Huey
Director of Photography: Leo Zhang