Maya Deren, Volume One, Dances For The Camera

This is a compilation of some of Maya Deren's most important films:

The Very Eye of Night (1955), Ritual In Transfigured Time (1946), Meditation On Violence (1948), Study For Choreography And Camera (1945). These films address dance as "...the stylization of movement which confers ritual dimension upon functional motion..." She has been described as an inheritor of the surrealists, however, Maya Deren was one of the earliest pioneers in the adaptation of dance for the camera. As a woman working in the 1940's and early 50's, her work anticipated many of the obstacles and biases of subsequent feminist discourse. Her work has long been the focus of film scholars, but neglected by those in the world of Dance/Film and Video. Maya Deren's work with Anthony Tudor and Talley Beatty among others represent seminal explorations of the possibilities of dance and the camera.