Anna Halprin shares her inspiring approach to life and art in BREATH MADE VISIBLE
BREATH MADE VISIBLE (Ruedi Gerber, 2009)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between Fifth Ave. & University Pl.
Opens Friday, April 23
212-924-3363
www.breathmadevisible.com
www.cinemavillage.com
Revolutionary dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin shares her inspirational life in the unforgettable new documentary BREATH MADE VISIBLE. Producer-director Ruedi Gerber (HEARTBREAK HOSPITAL) lets the innovative dance pioneer tell her own story, starting out as a child of the Great Depression, through her years dancing with and/or teaching Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, Eiko and Koma, and Meredith Monk. The film reveals her remarkable battle with cancer and her long, beautiful relationship with her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, as well her life today. As Halprin approaches ninety, she is still performing, teaching, and choreographing in her unique way. Gerber tracks down amazing archival footage of Halprin from throughout her career, including many gatherings on the deck she and her husband built at their home, a sort of hippie commune in Marin County. In her work, Halprin gets close to nature, allowing the body to express deeply felt emotions while exploring its spiritual presence and its relationship with the land. The documentary features clips from such pieces as “Planetary Dance: A Prayer for Peace,” “Circle the Earth,” “Parades and Changes,” “Intensive Care, Reflections on Death and Dying,” “Seniors Rocking,” and, most dramatically, her 2003 one-woman show at the Joyce in Chelsea and her epic outdoor elegy “Return to Home.”
Halprin is an engaging, generous figure who seems to have thoroughly processed her life experiences, intelligently assessing her vast history as she reunites with longtime partners John Graham and A. A. Leath, deals with her husband’s fading health, shares even the most personal stories without fear or regret, and exhibits an infectious joie de vivre that will have viewers reconnecting with themselves and reevaluating their own destinies. Halprin clearly cherishes every moment of her life, just as audiences will cherish every moment of BREATH MADE VISIBLE. As a special treat, Gerber and Halprin will be at Cinema Village on Friday and Saturday nights to talk about the film but even more exciting is that Halprin will be leading a rare all-day New York City workshop, addressing the question “How does dance inform our real life relationships with our own bodies in interaction with others and in community?” at Judson Memorial Church on Saturday that’s not limited to experienced dancers, so don’t miss what should be an incredible, very special event.
CARMEN & GEOFFREY is an endearing look at Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder’s lifelong love affair with dance—and each other. The New Orleans-born de Lavallade studied with Lester Horton and went to high school with Alvin Ailey, whom she brought to his first dance class. Trinidadian Holder is a larger-than-life gentle giant who is a dancer, choreographer, composer, costume designer, actor director, writer, photographer, painter, and just about anything else he wants to be. The two met when they both were cast in Truman Capote and Harold Arlen’s Broadway show HOUSE OF FLOWERS in 1954, with Holder instantly falling in love with de Lavallade; they’ve been together ever since. Directors Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob combine amazing archival footage—of Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Ulysses Dove, de Lavallade dancing with Ailey, and other splendid moments—with contemporary rehearsal scenes, dance performances, and interviews with such stalwarts as dance critic Jennifer Dunning, Alvin Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, and choreographer Joe Layton (watch out for his eyebrows), along with family members and Gus Solomons jr and Dudley Williams, who still work with de Lavallade. The film was made on an extremely low budget, and it shows, but it is filled with such glorious footage that you’ll get over that quickly. The film is being screened at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem on April 23 as part of National Dance Week, followed by an after-party at the Harlem Brewing Company.
When media magnate Amos Kynes (Robert Warwick) dies, his son Walter (Vincent Price) takes over despite Amos’s greatest fears. Walter decides that whoever gets a scoop on the Lipstick Killer will become his number two man, so the backstabbing race is on among sleazy wire service chief Mark Loving (George Sanders); managing editor Jon Day Griffith (Thomas Mitchell), who’ll do just about anything for a story; and Harry Kritzer (James Craig), who thinks the best way to get the job is from the bed of Walter’s wife (Rhonda Fleming). Throw in cynical television journalist Ed Mobley (Dana Andrews) and hot-to-trot columnist Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) and you have another one of Hollywood’s terrific newspaper pics. Director Fritz Lang pulls no punches; the film is filled with plenty of sexual undertones (and overtones), and Kynes himself is a take-off of Charles Foster Kane, the glistening K atop his New York City skyscraper reminiscent of the K atop Xanadu’s front gate.