The Global Search for Education: While Every Sense Is Nourished, the Soul Rests

Posted By C. M. Rubin on Apr 9, 2026

This month on the Planet Classroom Network YouTube channel, audiences can watch While Every Sense Is Nourished, the Soul Rests, a contemporary dance film curated by Planet Classroom.

Directed by Grant Lee Bomar in collaboration with choreographer and producer Darla Johnson and her ACC sophomore performance students, the film blends expressive movement with cinematic storytelling. Edited by Dean Lee Bomar, with cinematography by Trevor Barton, Ramsay Foulke, Nikki Johnston, Tim Mateer, Addison Ripple, and Anna Wharton, and featuring original music by Eduardo Duarte, the project transforms student choreography into an immersive visual and sonic experience.

Set across multiple locations — from El Paso to North Carolina, Colorado, and Austin — the film explores connection, independence, and the relationship between movement and environment. Through layered imagery, cross fades, and a music-driven edit, While Every Sense Is Nourished, the Soul Rests demonstrates how collaboration across distance can produce artistic unity.

The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Grant Lee Bomar and Darla Johnson.

C. M. Rubin: While Every Sense Is Nourished, the Soul Rests blends contemporary dance with natural and urban landscapes. How did you envision the relationship between movement and environment when shaping the film’s visual language?

Darla Johnson:
Each dancer filmed and expressed themselves from their own physical location — one in El Paso, one in North Carolina, one in Colorado, and several across Austin. The project’s central theme was connection and independence. Nature became both inspiration and partner. It connected the dancers to one another while allowing each performer to maintain their individuality through solo expression.

C. M. Rubin: Working alongside producer and choreographer Darla Johnson, how did you translate her choreography into cinematic storytelling while preserving its emotional depth?

Grant Lee Bomar:
Much of that translation happened in the edit, led by Dean Bomar. The process flowed naturally rather than deliberately. Each dancer and collaborator brought their own creative taste, and the final film became a combination of all those inputs. The sense of unity emerged organically through creative freedom.

C. M. Rubin: The film features original music by Eduardo Duarte. How did collaboration between choreography, score, and editing shape the pacing and tone?

Grant Lee Bomar:
Music was central to the edit and set the tone for the layered imagery. Cross fades and overlapping visuals follow the rhythms within Eduardo’s score, evoking a layering of the soul. Music has an immediate impact on the audience, while visuals linger. In this film, the music led the structure. The choreography was created independently by each performer and merged afterward in the edit. The score became the glue holding those layers together.

C. M. Rubin: As director and creative collaborator, what do you hope audiences feel after experiencing this dance film?

Grant Lee Bomar:
I hope viewers feel a sense of peace between the soul and nature. The underlying idea is unity — the soul resting and connecting to the larger web of reality. Though the students were physically distant, dance, music, and film bridged that distance. Even through fragmentation in structure and production, cohesion emerges.

Through student artistry, original composition, and collaborative filmmaking, While Every Sense Is Nourished, the Soul Rests reflects how performance can transcend geography — and how movement, sound, and image together can create stillness within motion.