Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas celebrate sexual identity and personal freedom in beautifully poignant TURNING
NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: TURNING (Charles Atlas, 2012)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, $20, 9:30
www.docnyc.net
www.turningfilm.com
In 2004, musician and composer Antony Hegarty and film and video pioneer Charles Atlas premiered their multimedia collaboration, Turning, at the Whitney Biennial. The performance featured Antony and the Johnsons playing songs in front of a large screen on which Atlas projected live multiple images of a parade of “beauties” who one at a time slowly turned on a circular platform, standing tall and proud. The production went on an international tour, which Atlas and Antony document in a beautiful, intimate film version that is making its U.S. premiere November 11 as part of the DOC NYC festival before opening theatrically on November 16. Atlas, a former filmmaker-in-residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and director of the widely hailed The Legend of Leigh Bowery, takes viewers behind the scenes as the cast rehearses, puts on their costumes and makeup, gets pep talks from Antony, and opens up about their lives. Throughout the film, the women — Julia Yasuda, Catrina Delapena, Honey Dijon, Joie Iacono, Joey Gabriel, Kembra Pfahler, Nomi Ruiz, Stacey Mark, Johanna Constantine, Eliza Douglas, and Morisane Sunny Shiroma, who come from very different backgrounds and professional disciplines — share their poignant, emotional stories, addressing deeply personal issues of androgyny, transsexuality, and other aspects of sexual and gender identity. The soundtrack features Antony and the Johnsons — violinist Maxim Moston, cellist Julia Kent, bassist Jeff Langston, guitarist and violinist Rob Moose, drummer Parker Kindred, pianist Thomas Bartlett, horn player Christian Biegai, and accordionist Will Holshouser — performing such hauntingly evocative songs as “Everything Is New,” “For Today I Am a Buoy,” “Kiss My Name,” “Twilight,” and “Spiralling” as the women celebrate the freedom to be themselves in a defiant, public way. “Are you a boy / Are you a girl,” Antony, himself a former member of the underground avant-garde LGBT performance troupe Blacklips, repeats in “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy.” In the subtly powerful Turning, such labels don’t matter as a group of women face their future with confidence and hope. Antony and Atlas will be in attendance at the November 11 screening at the SVA Theatre to talk about the film, which will be followed by a free after-party, open to the general public, at the Bowery Electric, highlighted by a live performance by Nomi.