The Dancing Man of L.A.

One man dance party Howard Mordoh, a longtime fixture of the LA concert scene, copes with the cancelled concerts and isolation of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Howard Mordoh starring in his first music video performance for the band “The Know.”
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
May 24, 2021
Length
26 minutes
Funding Initiative
Short-Form Open Call
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2022 Telly Awards-Bronze Winner: Craft — Non-Broadcast
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2022 Telly Awards-Bronze Winner: Craft - Directing
    • Director

    Jennifer Fodor

    Jennifer Fodor is a Michigan native who has been living and working in LA for over 10 years. She’s worked with directors such as Spike Jonze, on music videos for the Foo Fighters, and as shooter/producer on MTV’s MADE. She’s worked with celebrity talent such as Jennifer Aniston, Jimmy Kimmel, Sofia Vergara, Michael Strahan, and Jon Hamm on various PSAs.… Show more Jennifer has experience on commercial sets, music video productions, movies, and documentary shoots. As an artist manager, she’s worked closely with musicians and bands. From her music industry contacts, she created and hosts her podcast I Love Music. She interviews people in the music industry - music supervisors, agents, artists - to hear each person’s unique journey. She’s a songwriter and avid concert enthusiast attending 3+ concerts per week when there’s not a pandemic. Show less

    Close up image of The Dancing Man director, Schott Sheppard.
    Director

    Scott Sheppard

    Scott Sheppard is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has screened internationally. He directed and produced the feature documentaries An Act of Love (Hulu) and Planes, Trains & Autorickshaws (Amazon Prime). An Act of Love won the audience award at the Mill Valley Film Festival and played over 175 times at film festivals and… Show more community screenings. He co-produced and edited the documentary Magnolia’s Hope about a family struggling with Rett Syndrome.As an editor, he worked on director Antoine Fuqua's documentary about infamous gangster rap mogul, Suge Knight, American Dream/American Knightmare for Showtime. He was an additional editor on the documentary, Erasing Family, about high conflict divorce and its effects on children. He has edited commercials, PSAs, shorts, and digital content for Universal, Showtime, Canon, Bank of America, Ad Council, Adobe, SoFi, American Heart Association, and many more. Show less

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    The Film

    69-year-old Howard Mordoh is a retired clinical laboratory scientist, a southern California native, and possibly the world’s biggest concert enthusiast. Self-described as a “professional audience,” Howard has been a notorious fixture of the Los Angeles music scene for decades, attending five to eight concerts per week since the 70s and always dancing to his fullest. Easily recognizable thanks to his long white hair and spirited dance style, Howard’s love of live concerts spans genres and venues, just as long as he can keep dancing.

    Howard has built a life around his passion but now, in his late sixties, the passage of time is catching up to him. He no longer has the stamina of youth to stay dancing all night, and his husband and friends have health issues that mean Howard is more often dancing solo. So with the cancellation of live concerts in 2020 due to COVID-19, Howard has had to get more and more creative in order to keep dancing. The Dancing Man of L.A. inhabits Howard’s unique lifestyle and passion for concerts, and explores the trauma of suddenly losing not only life’s purpose, but essential human connection.

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