Meditation on Violence
A poetic film by Maya Deren featuring performance by Chao Li-Chi
21 May 2012
Meditation on Violence (1948) a film by Maya Deren. Black and white, 16mm, 15mins.
Playing out the movements of the Wu Tang ritual, American avant-garde filmmaker MAYA DEREN explores movement and performance in Meditation On Violence. Filmed in 1948, dancer CHAO LI-CHI delivers a performance blurring beauty into violence, the Yin into the Yang, light into darkness. Deren experiments with film time, reversing the film part way through producing a loop. Moving forwards and then backwards, the difference in the Wu Tang movements is almost imperceptible.
Text by Sophie Pinchetti.
The new film by The Celestial Twins, Chile’s emerging artist filmmakers
India’s most maverick Babas: a unique documentary portrait
The revolutionary art of Jack Smith: a documentary portrait
The day the Kichwa of Sarayaku sailed down the Seine River to talk about their fight to defend the forest
“There can be no Peace as long as we wage war upon our Mother, the Earth”