Originally from the United States, David Leister emigrated to London at the end of the 1970s. A few years later he began to hang out at the Filmmakers' Co-op where he became one of the leading technicians and projectionists. In his role as a filmmaker, he has worked with archive films (of which he has an impressive collection) and more personal experimental films which, during performances, he often integrates with live sound.
Pointillist Dance is the fruit of a collaboration with a ballerina and two musicians. The film begins with a luminous dot from which the movement of an abstract dance unfolds. Leister made it to be integrated into multimedia performances, and also to be projected simply as a film in itself. Sober and refined, in black and white, Pointillist Dance creates the impression of a neo-impressionist painting in which the grainy texture is modulated along with the music which accompanies it.