Maya Deren, a significant artist of American modernism and the avant-garde, still relatively unknown in Greece, is “re-introduced” to the public through the screenings of eight of her films at MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection, at Moni Lazariston in Thessaloniki, from 14 to 31 March 2024.
Maya Deren (Eleonora Derenkovka) was born in Kiev in 1917 to parents of Jewish descent Solomon Derenkowsky and Gitel-Malka (Marie) Fiedler. She studied journalism and political science at Syracuse University and literature at New York University and Smith College. Her father, a distinguished psychiatrist, left Kiev with his family to escape anti-Semitic pogroms. From a young age, Maya Deren was an active political activist, a leading member of the Socialist Youth League in New York. She lived in New York, Paris and Los Angeles. She was involved in photography and experimental dance, and worked creatively together with the well-known African-American choreographer and ethnographer Katherine Dunham. From 1943 she devoted herself to experimental cinema, transferring elements of experimental dance to the movement of the camera. She created a personal cinematic style with elements of surrealism and magical fantasy, and understood cinema as a synthesis of visual and performing arts, which shaped and paved the way towards independent film productions. She died in New York in 1961.
Films
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
At Land (1944)
A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)
The Private Life of a Cat (1947)
Meditation on Violence (1948)
The Very Eye of Night (1958)
Divine Horsemen (1947-54, 1977)
Participating artists
Maya Deren, Talley Beatty, Rita Christiani, Frank Westbrook, Anaïs Nin, Ch'ao Li Chi, Anthony Tudor, Teiji Ito
Screenings schedule
15-16-17 March: 10:00-18:00
19-20 March: 10:00-18:00
21 March: 10:00-14:00
22-23-24 March: 10:00-18:00
26-27 March: 10.00-18.00
28 March: 10.00-16.00
29-30-31 March: 10.00-18.00
© Kino Classics and Re:Voir
Screenings running time: 208’
The films are in English without Greek subtitles.
There is no extra admission for the screenings.
