Maya Deren

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Maya Deren , born Eleanora Solomonovna Derenkovskaya (* 29 April 1917 in Kiev , Ukraine ; † 13. October 1961 in New York City ) was an American avant-garde - director , dancer and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s.

Life

The Derenkovskaja family fled the Ukraine in 1922 to Syracuse, New York State, where a brother of their father lived. The mother and child initially stayed with relatives in Columbus, Ohio. The parents were naturalized in 1928 and the family name was shortened to theirs. Elenora Deren went to Syracuse University when she was sixteen . She met her first husband, Gregory Bardecke, and became involved in the Young People's Socialist League . They married in 1935 and went to New York. Heren moved to New York University , where she received her BA in 1936 , and separated from her first husband. She studied English literature at Smith College and received her MA in 1939 . In 1940 she lived in Los Angeles, where she became the personal secretary of the choreographer Katherine Dunham , whose dance company toured with the play Cabin in the Sky (1941). She met the Czech film director Alexander Hammid (d i.. Alexander Hackenschmied ) and married him in 1942. Their acquired from the estate of her father († 1943) a used 16-mm - Bolex camera, which she used for all her films. Her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon , with Hammid, is her best known and is considered one of the best and most influential American avant-garde films . The artist took the first name Maya.

Back in New York City in 1943 she knew people like André Breton , Marcel Duchamp , John Cage and Anaïs Nin . A second film, Witches Cradle (1943), remained unfinished. She made At Land (1944), which starred herself, her husband Alexander Hammid, John Cage and the writer and critic Parker Tyler . The film A Study in Choreography for Camera followed in 1945 . In 1946 she received a Guggenheim scholarship , which she used for feature films. In 1947 Maya Deren won the Grand Prix International for 16mm experimental film for Meshes of the Afternoon at the Cannes International Film Festival . In the same year, the marriage with Alexander Hammid was divorced. In 1960 she married the musician and composer Teiji Ito .

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Deren studied Haitian voodoo extensively , funded by her Guggenheim grant (1946). She visited the island in 1947, 1949 and 1954 and not only shot many hours of film about voodoo rituals, but also took part in ceremonies herself. Divine Horsemen. The Living Gods of Haiti , a documentary made from this footage, edited by Cherel Ito (Winnett) and Teiji Ito, could not be presented until 1977. Maya Deren's book on Voodoo, Divine Horsemen. The Living Gods of Haiti (1953) is considered one of the most important on the subject.

Maya Deren died in 1961 at the age of 44 of a cerebral haemorrhage , presumably caused by malnutrition and prolonged consumption of amphetamines and sleeping pills. Their ashes were scattered on Mount Fuji .

16mm films

  • Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). 14 minutes, dumb. Music by Teiji Ito added in 1959. Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.
  • At Land (1944). 15 minutes, dumb. Camera: Hella Heyman and Alexander Hammid. Cast: John Cage, Maya Deren, Alexander Hamid, Parker Tyler.
  • Alexander Hammid (Director): The Private Life of a Cat (1945). 30 minutes. Collaboration between Hammid and Maya Deren.
  • A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945). 4 minutes, dumb. Actor Talley Beatty.
  • Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945/46). 15 minutes, dumb. Camera: Hella Heyman. Choreographic collaboration with Frank Westbrook. Starring: Rita Christiani, Maya Deren, Anaïs Nin, Frank Westbrook.
  • Meditation on Violence (1948). 12 minutes. Sound film. Performance by Chao-Li Chi , Chinese flute and Haitian drums, music collage arranged by Maya Deren
  • The Very Eye of Night (1959; shot 1952–1955) with students of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School under Antony Tudor , music by Teiji Ito

Unfinished

  • The Witches' Cradle (1943) with Marcel Duchamp and Pajorita Matta
  • Medusa (1949) with Jean Erdman
  • Haitian Film Footage (1947–1955); edited and commented posthumously by Cherel Ito and Teiji Ito. Released as Divine Horsemen, The Living Gods of Haiti in 1977.
  • Season of Strangers (1959) Haiku Film Project

Unpublished

  • Ensemble for Somnambulists (1951)

Publications (selection)

  • as Eleanora Deren: Religious Possesion in Dancing. Parts 1-3 (of 4): Educational Dance , March-April-May, 1942.
  • Choreography for Camera. In: Dance Magazine , October, 1945.
  • Cinema as an Art Form. In: New Directions , No. 9, Fall, 1946
  • An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film. An outcast chapbook. Oscar Baradinsky, The Alicat Bookshop Press, Yonkers, NY 1946. Reprinted in: Bill Nichols (Ed.): Maya Deren and the American Avant-garde. University of California Press, Berkeley 2001, Appendix , pp. 267ff.
  • Divine Horsemen. The Living Gods of Haiti. Thames and Hudson, London 1953.
  • From the Notebook of 1947. In: October , No. 14, Fall 1980, pp. 29-30.
  • Poetics of the film. Paths in the medium of moving images. Translated and introduced by Brigitte Bühler and Dieter Hormel. Merve Verlag , Berlin 1984.
  • Jutta Hercher, Ute Holl and others (eds.): Maya Deren: Choreography for a camera. Writings on the film. Material-Verlag, Hamburg 1995.

literature

  • Bill Nichols (Ed.): Maya Deren and the American Avant-garde. University of California Press, Berkeley 2001.

Documentation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Film Lexicon: Lemma Deren, Maya. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1978.
  2. ↑ Maya Deren: The High Priestess of Experimental Cinema. Retrieved May 1, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Compare the position of Katherine Dunham: Form and Function in Primitive Dance. In: Educational Dance , Volume 4, Number 4, 1941, pp. 2-4.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Theirs, Maya
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Derenkovskaya, Eleanora Solomonovna (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American director and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiev , Ukraine
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1961
Place of death New York City