FOUR JOURNEYS INTO MYSTIC TIME – LFF2019
Shirley Clarke (1919-1997) was one of the most prominent exponents of the New American Cinema Group. She trained as a dancer in New York with legendary choreographers Martha Graham and Hanya Holm. Clarke chose a dance film for her first cinematic production, in collaboration with dancer Anna Sokolow. After directing her most popular feature films in the 70s, she returned to making dance films and experimented with medleys of video art and dance in her
penthouse at the Chelsea Hotel. Four Journeys Into Mystic Time is a series of four dance films where Clarke relies on the formal possibilities of video just as she experimented with those of film in her earliest short films. Choreography in these videos is based in the compositional flow. Clarke also manipulates the plasticity of the TV image using visual abstraction as an integral part of choreography per sè.
Curated by Alessandro Del Re
DISTRIBUTION | RESTORATION
Shirley Clarke’s films were recently restored and are currently distributed worldwide by Milestone Films (www.projectshirley.com). Reading Bloom distributes them in Switzerland and Italy. Mysterium is distributed courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
MYSTERIUM
Shirley Clarke
USA | 1978 | 13’ 52
TRANS
Shirley Clarke
USA | 1978 | 7’ 38
ONE TWO THREE
Shirley Clarke
USA | 1978 | 8’ 20
INITIATION
Shirley Clarke
USA | 1978 | 28’ 13
