The great choreographer Trisha Brown, known for her experimentation with the every day movement of a “democratic and disobedient body”, performs here, moving as quickly as water, in front of Mangolte’s lens, who had studied thoroughly her choreography. According to Kristina Köhler, Mangolte, in contrast to Maya Deren’s technological gimmickry in her “filmdance”, follows, fascinated and with precision, the spatial course of the dance, so that there is constantly a full image of the dancer, resulting in a paradoxical proximity by distance. Mangolte’s choice to repeat the solo in slow motion refers to the tradition of slow motion in dance sequences in silent cinema, but more importantly provides the possibility, like with a magnifying lens, to study the details of the choreography and hence of a heightened and immediate-physical vision.
Babette Mangolte (1941) is a French-American director, cinematographer, photographer and artist who has lived in New York since 1970. She has worked as a cinematographer with Chantal Akerman and Yvonne Rainer and has made important experimental films on the very act of looking about the American landscape, about contemporary dance and the art of performance. She is considered one of the most important artists of the American avant-garde and currently teaches at the University of San Diego in California.
Photos: Water Motor, Trisha Brown ©1977 Babette Mangolte, all rights of reproduction reserved
