Maya Deren: Leading a Legacy Curator Sally Berger in attendance Friday, May 20, 8PM Location: Rice Media Center, 6100 Main Street $8 Non-Members, Aurora Members Free with RSVP
Aurora Picture Show brings the films of American experimental film visionary Maya Deren to Houston through a special collaboration with Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art. Deren received the first Guggenheim Foundation grant for “creative work in the field of motion pictures” and formed the Creative Film Foundation to broaden support for experimental film. She continued making and self-distributing her own films and lecturing and writing about avant-garde cinema theory until her untimely death at the age of forty-four. Her pioneering formal innovations—performing in front of the camera, using semiautobiographical content, and meshing literary, psychological, and ethnographic disciplines with rigorous technique—inspired future generations of experimental filmmakers. This program was originally presented in “Maya Deren’s Legacy: Women and Experimental Film” at The Museum of Modern Art. Sally Berger will be in attendance to introduce the films.
Sally Berger is a film and media curator, lecturer, and writer. She specializes in the areas of experimental video and non-fiction media. She is an Assistant Curator in the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art (1986 to the present). She was Executive Director of the Flaherty Seminar from 1989-94. She is an international guest lecturer and programmer and writes on non-fiction practices and media art. She received her M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University in 1999 and B.A. from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in 1986.
Film prints of rarely seen works made 1943-59 by American avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, include:
Meshes of the Afternoon 1943. USA. Directed by Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid. This first film in Deren’s legacy was unique for its time in that it investigated the interior life of a woman, identity, and performance in front of a camera, using the technology of cinematography and editing to create new film realities. Soundtrack by Teiji Ito added in 1959. 14 min.
At Land 1942. USA. Directed by Maya Deren. When a woman, played by Deren, is washed ashore, she begins an ”inverted Odyssey” on land in this film that references both Ulysses and Alice in Wonderland. Deren’s art-world contemporaries John Cage, Alexander Hammid, and others appear in the film. 14 min.
Ritual in Transfigured Time 1946. USA. Directed by Maya Deren. With Rita Christiani, Frank Westbrook, Anaïs Nin, Deren. A young woman is introduced to society in a party scene choreographed to reflect her acceptance into society as an extended choreographic movement. Silent. 15 min. A Study in Choreography for Camera 1945. USA. Directed by Maya Deren, with choreographer and dancer Talley Beatty. In this work, Beatty moves from one position to another like one does in dreams, naturalistically, but without being aware of all the transitions. Deren synchronizes the tempos of his spiral movements with the tempos of the turning camera. Silent. 4 min. The Very Eye of Night 1952–59. USA. Directed by Maya Deren, with choreographer Antony Tudor. Music by Teiji Ito. Deren’s last completed film is based on the constellations of the night sky and the mystery of the universe. “The sleepwalker travels in three directions at once: down into the abyss, up into the heavens, and inwards to the self.” 14 min.
