Dance Film | Maya Deren

Four short dance films by Maya Deren

"In this film, I have attempted to place a dancer in a limitless, cinemato-graphic space. Moreover, he shares, with the camera, a collaborative responsibility for the movements themselves. This is, in other words, a dance which can exist only on films The movement of the dancer creates a geography that never was. With a turn of the foot, he makes neighbors of distant places. Being a film ritual, it is achieved not in spatial terms alone, but in terms of a time created by the camera."
- Maya Deren on A Study in Choreography for the Camera, 1945

"In her approach we have the beginnings of a virtually new artform of 'choreocinema' in which the dance and the camera collaborate on the creation of a single work of art."
- John Martin, New York Times, 1946

A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR THE CAMERA 1945, silent, b/w, 2min30
RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME 1945-46, silent, b/w, 16min
MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE 1948, b/w, 13min
THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT 1952-55, b/w, 15min