The Americas film takes an allegorical approach to the theme of Chrysalis. It is called ‘Americas’ rather than ‘America’ or ‘United States’, to represent the diversity of the collaborators: Franco-American choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland is joined by Mexican composer Erika Vega, and her principal dancer, who can trace his heritage back to the Aztecs. This film, therefore, will explore Aztec rituals of birth and death. The principal dancer begins wrapped in silk and buried in snow. The choreography shows him freeing himself from layers of silk, rising from the bank of snow, becoming a fully embodied person - or is he a deity? The cinematography will experiment with binaries of light and darkness, being inside versus outside, and emerging. This is interspersed with the musician in a ruined abbey outside Oxford, under the gentle fall of snow. Indeed, the whole ethos of this film encompasses the idea of emergence, leaving behind former trappings to transform into something other--something grander and more complete.