What is Maya Deren known for?
Choreography
FilmDance
Maya Deren/Known for
Why did Maya Deren change her name?
Maya Deren came to America in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father, a psychiatrist and her mother, an artist, she fled the pogroms against Russian Jews in Kiev. Through this association she changed her name to “Maya”, a Buddhist term meaning ‘illusion’.
What camera did Maya Deren use?
16 mm Bolex camera
In 1943, Deren purchased a used 16 mm Bolex camera with some of the inheritance money after her father’s death from a heart attack. This camera was used to make her first and best-known film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), made in collaboration with Hammid in their Los Angeles home on a budget of $250.
Where is Maya Deren from?
Kyiv, Ukraine
Maya Deren/Place of birth
How can Maya Deren remain so influential in art history?
One of the most influential works of American experimental film, it has been credited with establishing the avant-garde film movement in the United States. Deren completed five more short films before her death and left several unfinished works. Her first film as sole director was At Land (1944).
What makes a film avant-garde?
Avant-garde films allow the viewers to question and challenge their thinking about what they see. There is typically no conventional point to the films. The films explore issues of time, space, dreams, fantasy, and perception. Most of the films are innovative, eccentric, unique, and some frightening.
What is the theme of Meshes of the Afternoon?
Narrator: Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid is arguably the most important American avant-garde film. It uses a dreamlike structure to explore themes of anxiety, identity, and desire.
What does it mean if a film is characterized as experimental or avant-garde?
Experimental film, experimental cinema, or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working.
What does avant-garde literally mean?
advance guard
Avant-garde is originally a French term, meaning in English vanguard or advance guard (the part of an army that goes forward ahead of the rest).
When did Maya Deren meet Alexandr Hackenschmied?
It was there that Deren met Alexandr Hackenschmied (later Hammid), a celebrated Czech-born photographer and cameraman who would become her second husband in 1942. Hackenschmied had fled from Czechoslovakia in 1938 after the Sudetenland crisis.
When did Maya Deren make meshes of the afternoon?
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), her collaboration with Alexander Hammid, has been one of the most influential experimental films in American cinema history.
Where did Maya Deren meet her second husband?
At the end of touring a new musical Cabin in the Sky, the Dunham dance company stopped in Los Angeles for several months to work in Hollywood. It was there that Deren met Alexandr Hackenschmied (later Hammid), a celebrated Czech-born photographer and cameraman who would become her second husband in 1942.
When did Maya Deren make her first film?
This camera was used to make her first and best-known film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), made in collaboration with Hammid in their Los Angeles home on a budget of $250. Meshes of the Afternoon is recognized as a seminal American avant-garde film.