Philip Glass: Akhnaten

Also known as “Letter from Venice,” Susan Sontag’s fourth and final film tells of a relationship that is fragmenting as the partners tour the decaying ruins of a hallucinatory Venice.

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

The European premiere of the opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars, in a co-production of the San Francisco Opera (where the work premiered), the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and De Nederlandse Opera. The plot focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb (the "Trinity" test) was being prepared.

The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.

Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.

This seminal work of avant-garde opera from composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson arrives full-circle, coming to France, the site of its 1976 Avignon Festival world premiere, at the tail end of this 2014 revival tour for a landmark Theâtre du Châtelet production and a first ever filming by award-winning arts filmmaker Don Kent. Eschewing conventional narrative, the opera revolves loosely around pacifist Einstein’s relationship to the creation of the atomic bomb.

Florence is found dead and mutilated. When Nathalie hears about this in the bar where she plays piano she becomes interested. She tries to get in touch with the people who knew Florence closely. Eventually she gets them to talk about Florence's destructiveness. About her deviant pleasure in hurting and injuring herself.

Produced in an era before 24-hour programming cycles, Video 50 was initially used as a late night filler on TV stations in Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Random, surreal, and unexpected, Video 50 resembles the dream cycle of a dormant TV station after it conscious programming has ceased. Its structure and form anticipate the dissociated sequence of moving images we are now accustomed to encountering on YouTube and social media.

In this "fourteen-part drill for the camera," Frampton created a portrait gallery of his art-world friends engaging in a variety of ordinary activities.

According to the first volume of the Andy Warhol film cat. rais., the film was probably shot on the same day as Jill Johnston Dancing. In the Stephen Koch filmography, Shoulder is listed as: "16mm, 4 minutes, B/W, silent, 16 fps. Filmed summer, 1964. Lucinda Childs' shoulder."

For Deborah Hay’s SOLO, Larry Heilos designed the control systems for eight radio-controlled carts that moved around the Armory floor, which were then covered with wooden boxes to make platforms for dancers to stand or lie on. At the rear of the space, eight formally dressed performers operated the radio-control system to move the platforms into and around the space. Composer Jim Tenney acted as the “conductor” of the “orchestra”. Sixteen dancers entered the brightly lit space either walking or riding on a cart. They then walked in solo, duet, or trio formations or rode on the moving platforms, following Hay’s specific rules and choreography. The sound for the performance was David Tudor’s realization of Toshi Ichiyanagi’s work FUNAKAKUSHI. [Overview courtesy of Anthology Film Archives]

Made in 1980, this film explores the contemporary dance scene through the work of seven New York-based choreographers. They discuss the nature of dance and the evolution of their own work. Filmed at rehearsals, performances, and during interviews, the film is a unique primary source. The artistic roots of these seven artists can be found in Martha Graham's concern with modern life as a subject for dance and in Merce Cunningham's emphasis on the nature of movement. In the 1960s, the interaction of art forms generated choreographic innovations. Especially influential was John Cage, whose radical ideas served as a point of departure for much of the new choreography. Each of the choreographers in Making Dances draws inspiration from the Graham/Cunningham tradition, yet each makes a highly distinctive statement. Structure, movement in non-fictive time and space, and the nature of movement itself are recurring themes.

A documentary about the American postmodern dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs. For Dance, a choreography from '79 set to the music of Philip Glass in film/decor of Sol Lewitt, Lucinda received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This masterpiece is the leitmotiv in this documentary. We see Lucinda in NY where she re-stages Dance during the Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2010. We also follow her in Arnhem during the preparations of the piece at Introdans, where it will premiere as a part of ”Sterren en Strepen” (Stars and Stripes). For this show Introdans united the king and queen of modern dance, Hans van Manen and Lucinda Childs, in order to show their pieces together. We will also be speaking to prominent figures from the dance scene about her influence on Dutch modern dance.