Performance

Blues music was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century by rural black musicians. They shaped it with brilliant inspiration from disparate elements of black song. By the early 1920s recorded urban performers solidified the standard three-verse, 12 bar meter structure that has identified most blues.
The blues revival of the early 1960s brought many of these survivors to the forefront of traditional music. The rare footage presented in this video is a treasure beyond imagining, drawn from a myriad of sources, depicting some of the greatest blues musicians who ever lived.Read More »

Step on Silence was made from raw material from Peter Martins – en danser but unlike the traditional way the Martins film communicates its material in this case we have a film that with its slightly dusty, scratchy appearance makes room for all the shots originally discarded for technical or narrative reasons. It fades to black and up again if visual material is lacking at any given moment, for example, while the continuity of the soundtrack is maintained. The establishing by the cameraman of a new frame or focus is not edited out for the sake of appearances. The painstaking repetitions from the rehearsal room are captured by showing several takes of the same detail from the dance one after the other. Read More »

Peter Martins – en danser is a classical documentary using illustrative visuals, interviews with the subject, and a linking narrative voice over paints a portrait of the Danish ballet star with the New York City Ballet. “I cannot deal with second best people”, the handsome, self-assured Martins says, describing himself as a monstrously ambitious man who is however able to regard his work as a continual learning process. The film follows Martins as a dancer and choreographer, primarily in the rehearsal room but also on stage.Read More »

Not surprisingly, Jørgen Leth became fascinated by Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), an African-American anthropologist, dancer and choreographer living in Haiti. Dunham was politically engaged and a powerful personality. Unfortunately, at the time it proved impossible to raise the money to produce a film portrait. This pilot has survived on a battered VHS cassette. Footage from a dance seminar in East St. Louis is complemented with interviews with Dunham and other black dancers. The producer Terry Carter is working on having the planned Dunham film accomplished.Read More »

Filmed just eight months after The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, THE T.A.M.I. SHOW introduced rock ‘n’ soul youth culture to America in the first concert movie of the rock era. One of the rarest and most sought-after performance films from its time, the 1964 concert event featured future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, The Supremes and many other American and British Invasion hitmakers in their prime.Read More »

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A documentary film autobiography of Sam Shepard with selections from his plays and prose in performances by Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise and Vincent D’Onofrio. Shepard takes us on a quest into the idea of self, family and identity and a journey into the heartland of America – the landscape, characters, anxieties, and the music. The Signature Theatre presents a full season of his plays, spanning thirty years of writing. In his only extensive interview on film, Shepard speaks eloquently about the process of writing and the origins of his work.Read More »

Taj Mahal Travellers On Tour is part travelogue, part performance, 100% head-spinning. It follows their worldwide (literally) expedition throughout 1971 – 1972, making music in universities, concert halls, beach fronts, Afghan steppes, wherever. As Julian Cope writes in Japrocksampler:
Taj Mahal Travellers On Tour explains more about the mindset of this wild ensemble than any book could hope to, revealing six inordinately hairy cosmic explorers hungry to make sounds in any possible situation.Read More »

Not for the staid traditionalist, Matts EK’s ballet turns expectations on their head. The basic story is there; and Adolphe Adam’s unmistakable music guides us through. But there the similarities end.

Set in a more modern era, Albrecht is a city sophisticate to Giselle’s rural innocent. And innocent she is, but far from the shy creature of yore, this Giselle is precocious, almost uninhibited. But there’s no suggestion that this excuses Albrecht’s use and abuse of her. The ‘white’ act is very different, too. Set in a lunatic asylum, the choreography will be earily famiar to anyone who has visited one of those places (or even seen One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest).Read More »

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Having taken on flamenco (“Sevillanas”) and tango (“Tango”), Carlos Saura tackles a third great melancholy music style, directing “Fados,” a celebration of Portugal’s classic, lamenting acoustic folk songs. The film combines fado performances from top artists, dance from Portugal, Brazil and Cape Verde and archive footage. In the song centrepieces, artists deliver contemporary versions of fado classics. Lined up fadistas include young female star Mariza as well as Grammy award-winner Carlos do Carmo. Renowned diva Amália Rodrigues is remembered through arquive footage while the exploration of fado’s influences and roots gives opportunities to embrace prestigious Brazilian performers Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and the emerging Cape Verdean star Lura.Read More »