Jamaican-born actor and film producer Orville Matherson will be in the island from December 6-13 to scout locations and hold preliminary meetings for his debut project, the feature film A Dance For Grace.

Matherson... it was always our dream to involve Jamaica in the project

A Dance For Grace, previously titled Saving Grace, began shooting several months ago in various North American locations including New York, Connecticut and Atlanta.
Shooting is expected to be completed within the next few months, following the filming of several sequences in Jamaica.

A Dance For Grace tells the story of a group of mostly Caucasian high school students living in a small rural town who decide to enter a dance competition, hoping to use the prize money to fund a life-saving operation required by one of their town's most revered citizens - a middle-aged woman named Grace.

Their quest leads them to recruit their Jamaican-born dance tutor, Ricky - played by Matherson - a former drug dealer currently on probation. He decides to introduce them to Jamaican culture by teaching them a dancehall routine for the competition.

But as the contest draws closer, and Grace's condition worsens, Ricky finds it increasingly challenging to teach the teenagers the fundamentals of dancehall.

As a last resort, he finally arranges to bring the dancers to Jamaica to experience the dancehall culture first-hand, hoping this will stand them in better stead for the competition.

Matherson will be accompanied to Jamaica by his co-producer, director and screenwriter for the film, Junior Powell, as they scout locations for filming. Both men are partners in the New York-based production company Tower Isle Productions, which is producing the project independently. Matherson and Powell took the decision to write Jamaica into the script after visiting the island on several occasions and being overwhelmed by the wealth of talent and resources that the country has to offer.

"It was always our dream to involve Jamaica in the project some way," Matherson says. "And during one of my visits earlier this year, I met briefly with the Film Office at Jamaica Trade and Invest as well as other local interests and saw that bringing part of the film here would really not be so difficult after all."

Powell continues "I actually re-wrote the script a bit to accommodate a Jamaican shoot and we are hoping that it will lend authenticity and vitality to the project, and of course, show Jamaica off in a very positive light."

Matherson and Powell named their company Tower Isle Productions in a salute to the Tower Hill area of Kingston in which they grew up.

Both say that they have always wanted to showcase Jamaica on film.

"A Dance For Grace will showcase Jamaica's dancehall culture in a tremendously positive way, in a film that really celebrates the coming together of different races and cultures for a common good," Matherson continues.

"Initially, we were going to shoot it all in the USA but we are hoping that through this and subsequent visits, we can put all the pieces together to ensure that Jamaica itself plays a prominent role in the final product."

In addition to Matherson, who has appeared in such series as Law and Order and New York Undercover, A Dance For Grace also features a cast of established and up-and-coming screen names including actress/choreographer Jo-Jo7 (Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club), Yarc Lewinson (Spike Lee's Miracle at St Anna's), Matt Ruiz, Claudia Janelle and So You Think You can Dance alumnus, Musa Cooper.

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