Mark Alice Durant: Maya Deren, Choreographed for Camera
Mark Alice Durant, author of Maya Deren, Choreographed for Camera, is the premiere Maya Deren biographer. His work is based on years of research, interviews with Deren’s closest collaborators, and explores the complexities and contradictions in the life and work of this remarkable and charismatic artist.
He will join Tufts FMS for a talk about his newly published book on Deren’s remarkable life and work, and will focus on her experimental short dance films. The evening will include a screening and discussion of Meshes of the Afternoon, Ritual in Transfigured Time, A Study in Choreography for Camera, and At Land.
Co-sponsored by
Tufts Film and Media Studies
Tufts Dance Program
Tufts Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Additional FMS, Dance, and Theatre student author meeting + breakfast: Friday, March 31 @ 10:30 am in Barnum LL26
About the Book
Maya Deren, Choreographed for Camera (Saint Lucy Books)
Drama and myth frame the life and death of Maya Deren. Born in Kiev in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution, she died forty-four years later in New York City. In her brief life, she established herself as a pioneering experimental filmmaker, prolific writer, accomplished photographer, and crusader for a personal and poetic cinema. With its dreamy circular narrative and enigmatic imagery, her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), has inspired generations of artists, filmmakers, and poets. Deren worked and collaborated with numerous mid-century cultural luminaries, including Katherine Dunham, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Anais Nin, Gregory Bateson, Jonas Mekas, and Joseph Campbell.
Deren received the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever awarded for creative filmmaking, using the funding to travel to Haiti where she became a devotee of Vodou. In 1953, she pubished Divine Horsemen, a ground-breaking ethnographic study of Haitian religious culture. Although Deren completed only six short films in her lifetime, her impact on the history of cinema is immeasurable. She has become the patron saint of 20th century experimental film. The aura that suffuses Deren’s legend emanates from the power of her films, magnified by her bohemian glamour and visionary intelligence.
This is the first full biography of Deren. Based on years of research, interviews with some of Deren’s closest collaborators, and generously illustrated with film stills and photographs, author Mark Alice Durant creates a vivid and accessible narrative exploring the complexities and contradictions in the life and work of this remarkable and charismatic artist.