Dalia Neis is a writer, musician, filmmaker, & facilitator
Writing
Out Now:
The Swarm
Publisher: The Elephants | 2023
Order Here"THE SWARM, by Berlin-based filmmaker and musician Dalia Neis, is a shape-shifting, metaphysical thriller that circles around a cohort of living and dead spirits who plot their way out of Hungarian fascist rule in the thermal baths of Budapest and escape into the Transcarpathian Mountains of western Ukraine. It's no hyperbole to say we've never read anything like it." Broc Rossell"This is a beautiful and hallucinatory ritual bath (made of the purest) lesbian ecstasy which I recommend as a corrective to pretty much everything." Ariana Reines
Out Now:
Zephyrian Spools (An Essay, A Wind)
Publisher: Knives, Forks & Spoons poetry press | 2020
Order Here"This extraordinary work will transform how you see the element in which we live, which surrounds us, and enters us – as agency, as magical entity, as mode of transport to other dimensions; the ‘eternal, axiomatic, cosmic wind.’ Zephyrian Spools is a wind-vision: part poem, part novel, part feminist Bildungsroman, part virtual film-script, part essay, tracing a young filmmaker called Lydia’s obsession with the haunting cinematic dream of filming the wind. Her quest leads her to the enigmatic and sensual scholar-mystic Dr Lizzie Zephyrah with whom she undergoes a species of apprenticeship: ‘we are making a film. It just doesn’t involve a camera.’ This beguiling, unclassifiable text re-humanises our new materialism and fashions a lens for yet further, far-seeing enquiry: ‘realising you are wind filming wind.’ " Scott Thurston
Out Now:
Hercules Road
Publisher: MA Bibliothèque| 2020
Order Here"Hercules Road traces the past in the present, revisiting a time of change and exploration, of thinking through, seeing, scripting, and making films, of shifting sexuality, and multiple identifications and influences. Layer upon layer, time upon time, it is a poetic evocation of becoming." Sharon Kivland
Selected Writing:
A selection of art criticism, film writing, lyrics & essays appear in The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, Senses of Cinema, Makhzin, Hyperallergic, Tripwire (Journal of Poetics) Close-Up and here.
Music
Dalia is vocalist, lyricist, and musician for the musical/poetry project Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm. In previous iterations known as FITH, formed in Berlin with composer/producer Enir Da, their project expanded to become a revolving collective of musicians and poets spread out across a Paris/Manchester/Berlin axis before settling into a triad form with guitarist Chrls Lamouroux. Gesturing toward ancient lineages of poetry, and storytelling, Dali Muru is driven by the spell of the spoken word, minimal percussive refrains, oneiric textures, & deep melodic synths, channeling cinematic imagery, enigmatic narratives & spiritual frenzy. They have released two albums with Belgian-based label STROOM and have produced special one-off radio shows (NTS radio show HERE; latest Movement Radio show HERE). Dali Muru have been invited to perform in venues/museums such as Lafayette Anticipations Paris, MHKA Antwerp, festivals including Rewire (NL), Out.Fest (Pt), Meakusma (BE) , Ideal Trouble (FR), upcoming Lost (IT) and more.Dalia is co-founder of WANDA – an audio imprint and radio show which traverse the cinematic, literary, and sonic spheres.Stravsky & Pelè is a new soundtrack and live score collaboration between Dalia and Scottish artist, composer, and vocalist, Susannah Stark. The newly formed duo have recently scored their first soundtrack for Ashkan's Sepahvand's film 'Seeking for Story' (more info coming soon).Watch the trailer here –
Out Now:
***Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm ***
'Murmur of the Bath Spirits'
Label: STROOM | 2023| 12" Vinyl / DL
" Steeped in humid ambient soundscapes realised by Dalia with Enir Da, the 48’ album is a multi-layered trip into the space where distinctions between sonic fiction, spoken word and radioplay circles run freely, suspending disbelief in a veiled way that makes for a deliciously between-worlds listening experience comparable to the hypnagogic effect of Voice Actor’s momentous debut or the shapeshifting ambient-classical qualities to Teresa Winter’s ‘Drowning By Numbers’...."Boomkat
***Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm ***
Label: STROOM | 2022| 12" Vinyl / DL
Re-press second edition
" More fantastical, kaleidoscopic anti-genre business from the ridiculously on-point STROOM stable. This time Berlin-MCR duo Dalia Neis and Enir Da (Fith) refract grimy fairytale folk and odd-world trip-hop poetry thru electro-prog prisms. One for the Finders Keepers, Czech New Wave movie soundtracks, Broadcast and The Focus Group, Leila and Muslimgauze crews - basically, well good..." Boomkat
FITH 'Swamp'
Label: Outer Reaches | 2019 | 12" Vinyl / DL
"These are not times for playing it safe. Ultimately what’s the point? A band, well collective, who definitely don’t is Fith. Core members Dice Miller and Enir Da are joined by Rachel Margetts, Chris Lmx and Arnaud Mathé. This almost revolving door of poets, musicians and philosophers pull their richly diverse influences and experiences to create something that sits in the middle of a Venn diagram consisting of jazz, prog, dark psychedelia, glitchy electronica, Avant-pop, post-punk swagger and dub sensibilities. Like a band that is based in Paris, Manchester and Berlin, it shouldn’t work, but it does..." God is in theTV
Celluloid Corridors
Dice Miller, Mohamed A. Gawad & Andreas Reihse |Label: Wanda | 2017 | Cassette / DL
"...A bed of concrète electronics and head-bending, illusive effects on the 5th release by Berlin/Salford’s highly curious Wanda project...The texts to Timehelix and Sermon are included on the inlay for anyone who struggles to follow the readings, which appear to cross sonic/literary leylines between critical film theory, psychogeography and sound poetry with a synaesthetic short-circuiting of the senses and experimental convention. " Boomkat
Saints of Cinema
Dice Miller & Michael Holland | Label: Wanda / Ono | 2017 | 3" / DL
"File in your outer limits/imagined avant garde film soundtrack shelf." Boomkat
FITH
Label: Wanda | 2016 | 12" Vinyl / DL
"Quietly alluring debut LP of post punk-tempered avant-pop songs and cinematic mise-en-scene from Fith: a canny proposition revolving filmmaker/vocalist Dalia Neis a.k.a Dice Miller, plus Lori Goldstone (Nirvana, Earth), Alex Paulick (Kreidler), and Enid Da; released on the Berlin/Manchester co-operative, Wanda, who previously issued an excellent, imagined soundtrack-cum-compilation, Wanda is not here earlier this summer. Crepuscular, oneiric, anchronistic, Fith unfolds a spellbinding narrative guided by protagonist, Dice Miller, a poised and coolly possessed character who flits from dubbed-out glossolalia recalling Negra Branca to an icier, detached aloofness almost recalling John Balance, and even percolated choral arrangements reminding of Maya S.K. Ratkje, but always returning to a hushed delivery, mixed with uncanny presence at front and centre of the soundfield." Boomkat
Wanda is Not Here
Mixtape |Label: Wanda / Ono | 2016 | Cassette / DL
"The inaugural release by a new UK/German label, Wanda is a cassette mixtape intended as a homage to Barbara Loden’s 1970 film, Wanda. These simple premises work as a unifying concept helping the integration of a variety of tracks into a miraculously coherent, alternative soundtrack... " Continuo Docs
Spinoza's Vision
Label: Cosmic Laughter | 2011 | 7" Vinyl
Vocals & Lyrics: Dalia Neis
Additional Vocals: Khaled Barakeh & Jorge Luis Borges
“Was Spinoza familiar with medieval Islamic thought? Did he, a heretic Jew, see himself in a line with other heretics and rationalist skeptics some of whom also turned to optics to study the most fundamental laws of nature? And did he in his dreams see the golden light from the Hispanic peninsula, the home of his ancestors? We don’t know, and Dalia Neis doesn’t. But, different from us, she tries to imagine him imagining these traces and webs of relationship. Did he “somehow” invent cinema, the very art of light capable of a singular truth he thought was only accessible to philosophers? Of course not. And Dalia Neis knows he didn’t. But she dares to imagine that he did and that, therefore, cinema, philosophy, heresy and the art of crafting lenses somehow do share the same space, making Spinoza, once again, our contemporary, our neighbor, in the cinema seat.” Martin Saar
Films
Spinoza's Vision (Redux)
Audio Film for the Cinema (5.1 Installation) : Dalia Neis & Andreas Reihse
Lyrics & Vocals ; Drymba Harp & Field Recordings: Dalia Neis | Additional Vocals: Khaled Barakeh & Kathia Rudametkin
Sound & Music: Andreas Reihse
2020 | 7.50 Min
Celluloid Corridors : 'Sermon' / 'Timehelix'
Audio Film for the Cinema (5.1 Installation) : Dalia Neis, Andreas Reihse, Mohamed A. Gawad
Lyrics & Vocals: Dalia Neis | Mohamed A. Gawad
Sound & Music: Andreas Reihse
2020 | 20 Min
Charles Bronson Is Ibn Arabi
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Camera: Damien Sanville
2010 | 12 Min | Supported with a grant from The Elephant Trust Foundation.
*** Missing Meilich***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Camera: Sven O. Hill | Editor: Laurie Yule | Sound: Laurie Yule & Dalia Neis |2004 | 22 min | Super-8 Colour & B/W | Commissioned by RTBF-Carré Noir
*** Saints***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis
2006 | 5 min | B/W | 16mm | Silent
*** Goray 1648***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Editor: Laurie Yule | Sound: Dalia Neis & Laurie Yule
2007 | 8 min | 16mm Colour & B/W | Supported with a Grant for the Arts Award
*** Lotte & The Swan***
Filmmakers: Dalia Neis & Thomas Dylan Eaton | 2008 | 3 min | 16mm Colour | Silent
*** Pogrom***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis |
2005 | 3 min | 16mm B/W| Silent
*** Lalla Soulika***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Editor: Laurie Yule | Sound: Laurie Yule & Dalia Neis | 2005 | 4 min | Super 8 Colour|
*** When I Find You Again, it will be in Mountains***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Camera: Sven Olaf Hill | Cast: Josette Chiang & Helen Buckwheat | Producer: Dan Brilliant | 2003 | 9 min | Super 8 Colour|
*** Miro Romipen ***
Filmmakers: Dalia Neis, Patrik Soergel & Patrick Conka | 2001 | 32 min Colour | 16mm | Video | Commisioned by Swiss/Italian TV | Winner of the 8th International artistic competition "Amico Rom".
*** Bike Ride***
Filmmaker: Dalia Neis | Camera: David Wnendt | Editor: Tajana Pavicevic |2001 | 5 min | Super 8 Colour | Nominated for the first prize at FAMU Film competition by the film director, Věra Chytilová.
*** Stains***
Filmmaker : Conceived by Dalia Neis in collaboration with Queen Mary Literature students | Editor: Caleb Botton | Narrator: Jacqueline Rose
1999 | 5 min | Super 8 Colour & B/W
Shows
Dalia has exhibited, screened, and performed their work solo, and with her group, Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm, in a variety of venues and locations including abandoned and disused cinemas (Cinema Mele - Calabria), active cinemas (Bristol Cube Microplex, the ICA -London), auditoriums and museums (The Jewish Museum - Frankfurt am Main, Centre d'Art Contemporain - Genève, The Tate Modern - London), bookshops (The Calder bookshop - London, Hopscotch Reading Room - Berlin) and night clubs (Cantine am Berghain - Berlin, Yucatan Extensión - Vilnius).
Teaching
Dalia has facilitated courses and workshops on experimental film and writing, cinema history, audio-visual theory and poetics across a number of art colleges, universities, further education colleges, and community centers across the UK and Europe. Dalia graduated with a first class honours in English Literature at Queen Mary (University of London), an MA in the History of Film & Visual Media at Birkbeck College (University of London), a filmmaking diploma at FAMU (Academy of Film & Television, Prague), and a PhD on cinematic representations of wind and the essay form. Dalia also serves as a mentor for a variety of artists and filmmakers at educational programmes and cultural forums, and is looking to more deeply engage in community outreach and activist contexts. Currently, Dalia is certified as a transformational life coach and is in training as a somatic practitioner in an attempt to bridge these modalities into a holistic form of group facilitation, and one-to-one mentoring and coaching (more details can be found HERE/ inquiries welcomed via email contact below).
