“…in the affecting documentary “Trash Dance,” the director Andrew Garrison captures their magical performance and profiles its choreographer, Allison Orr, a skinny live wire who finds rhythm in routines and elegance in the everyday.

Read the full review: New York Times

Andrew Garrison’s Trash Dance, about the creation of a dance piece inspired by the work of sanitation workers, earned the festival’s audience award for best feature.

Read the rest of the story here at The Hollywood Reporter.

TRASH DANCE, directed by Andrew Garrison, received the Full Frame Audience Award. The film documents an unusual partnership between a dancer and the Austin Department of Solid Waste Services to stage a public performance starring man, music, and machine.

Read the rest of the story here at INDIEWIRE.

Though Orr has made her career unearthing the beauty of everyday movement, Garrison wisely and elegantly trains his lens not so much on Orr’s creative process per se, but the resonance her artistic collaboration has on those who are involved.

Garrison gives voice to the often invisible people involved in an essential service that make modern life livable — the people who get to work cleaning our streets at 2 a.m., who magically make the discards of our consumer culture conveniently disappear from the curb. We meet single fathers, parents holding down two jobs to make ends meet and, most importantly, people whose lives – like all lives – extend far beyond the boundaries of their employment.

With national discussions swirling around the one-percent versus the 99-percent, Garrison’s thoughtful, eloquent documentary illuminates the reality that all work matters and has dignity, no matter the invisibility of the labor.

Read the full review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin here.

Mekado Murphy discusses TRASH DANCE in his story in THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Finding Subjective Truths at SXSW”