About
film and photography
Julia Discenza is a cinematographer, photographer, director, video editor, and movement artist who uses her experience as a dancer to inform cinematography and storytelling through film. Julia’s interest in filmmaking was sparked while pursuing a BA in Dance and Biology at Barnard College. Upon graduating, Julia began a career as a contemporary dancer in NYC while also establishing herself as a freelance photographer and videographer. In 2015, she joined the Gibney, one of NYC’s biggest dance non-profit organizations, to found their Digital Media Initiative, a program designed to provide affordable, high-quality multimedia production and educational resources to the dance community. She filmed live performances and created video pieces for the dance community. She began to design and teach workshops aimed for dance artists to learn video production basics, editing, and dance filmmaking. During this time she continued her freelance film work, shooting and editing digital marketing content, dance pieces and short docs. Julia has taught workshops in dance filmmaking to children and adults throughout NYC and beyond. Julia serves as a curator and producer of dance film programming at CreateART, an artist-led performing arts org. In 2025 she co-directed CIRCADIA, New York City’s first 24hr dance film festival, in partnership with Ace Hotel Brooklyn, where teams of choreographers, dancers and filmmakers had 24 hours to create an original dance film inside the walls of the Ace Hotel.