Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.
The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It follows Victoria Page, an aspiring ballerina who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov, who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and her romance with composer Julian Craster.
A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has been prominent in different forms in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The practice of veiling is especially associated with women and sacred objects, though in some cultures, it is men, rather than women, who are expected to wear a veil. Besides its enduring religious significance, veiling continues to play a role in some modern secular contexts, such as wedding customs.
Meshes of the Afternoon is a 1943 American experimental silent short film directed by and starring wife-and-husband team, Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied.
Maya Deren was a Ukrainian-born American experimental filmmaker and important part of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer.
VideoDance Festival started in 2000 in Athens and Thessaloniki as an international dance film festival, but soon it widened up to include more kinds of experiment on movement and the moving image. The festival has counted 7 editions from 2000 to 2007.
At Land is a 1944 American experimental silent short film written, directed by, and starring Maya Deren. It has a dream-like narrative in which a woman, played by Deren, is washed up on a beach and goes on a strange journey encountering other people and other versions of herself. Deren once said that the film is about the struggle to maintain one's personal identity.
Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti is a black-and-white documentary film of approximately 52 minutes. It is about dance and possession in Haitian vodou that was shot by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren between 1947 and 1954.
Teiji Ito was a Japanese-born American composer and performer. He is best known for his scores for the avant-garde films by Maya Deren.
The music of the ancient Mayan courts is described throughout native and Spanish 16th-century texts and is depicted in the art of the Classic Period. The Maya played instruments such as trumpets, flutes, whistles, and drums, and used music to accompany funerals, celebrations, and other rituals. Although no written music has survived, archaeologists have excavated musical instruments and painted and carved depictions of the ancient Maya that show how music was a complex element of societal and religious structure. Most of the music itself disappeared after the dissolution of the Maya courts following the Spanish Conquest. Some Mayan music has prevailed, however, and has been fused with Spanish influences.
Arlene Sierra is an American composer of contemporary classical music, working in London, United Kingdom.
Talley Beatty was born in Cedar Grove, Louisiana, a section of Shreveport, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He is considered one of the greatest of African American choreographers, and also bears the titles dancer, doctor, and dance company director. After studying under Katherine Dunham and Martha Graham, Beatty went on do solo work and choreograph his own works which center on the social issues, experiences, and everyday life of African Americans. Beatty and his technique and style of dancing were both praised and criticized by critics and dancers of his day.
Ishanou is a 1990 Indian Manipuri film written by M. K. Binodini Devi and directed by Aribam Syam Sharma. The movie stars Anoubam Kiranmala and Kangabam Tomba in the lead roles. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. In 2023, it was recognised as a "World Classic" by the Cannes Film Festival 2023 and it was the only film selected from India for the event for that year. The movie was first aired in Doordarshan and later released in Usha Cinema, Paona Bazar on 6 July 1990.
The Man Who Loved Redheads is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Harold French and starring Moira Shearer, John Justin and Roland Culver. The film is written by Terence Rattigan based on his play Who Is Sylvia? (1950) which is reputedly a thinly veiled account of the author's philandering father. The film follows the play fairly closely, its main difference being the turning of Sylvia into a redhead.
The Witch's Cradle (1944), sometimes billed as Witches' Cradle, is an unfinished, silent, experimental short film written and directed by Maya Deren, featuring Marcel Duchamp, and filmed in Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery.
Sara Kathryn Arledge was an American artist and filmmaker acknowledged as "one of the foremothers of the American experimental cinema."
Barbara McCullough is a director, production manager and visual effects artist whose directorial works are associated with the Los Angeles School of Black independent filmmaking. She is best known for Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979), Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space (1980), Fragments (1980), and World Saxophone Quartet (1980).
Rita Christiani (1917-2008) was a Trinidad-born American dancer who appeared in American films during the 1940s.
Hella Hammid was an American photographer whose career included teaching at UCLA. Her freelance photographs appeared in diverse publications including Life, Ebony, The Sun and The New York Times. Her softly backlit picture of two young Italian girls dancing, watched by other children in front of the abutments of a stone building, was chosen by Edward Steichen for his 1955 world-touring MoMA exhibition The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million visitors.
