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VIA AIR MAIL


Gene Baro
Cross Creek
Route 1
Hawthorne, Florida.


a, a a a a a




Ma..iya Deren 61 1-lorton street 2e' York 14, N.Y,
I I


1.. \


I--- .-.,








Jov 16, 1?95


Dearest Gene:

I thought of you the moment I knew that Dylan had been taken to the hospital on
Friday, and I had a strong impulse to wire you but Iatfc was deterred by the
knowledge that no wiie would reach you and by the saner consideration that it
would be useless to worry you when there was nothing you could do. apparently
Dylan had been with his drinking companions on Thursday night, and just suddenly
keeled over in the manner characteristic of a stroke. He remained conscious
for about half an hour, being meanwhile taken to the hospital, and then went into
the coma from which he never emerged. The medical diagnosis was cerebral hemmorage.
Although he was surrounded by a virtually impenetrable wall of persons officially
and semi-officially involved with his appearances here, it \was possible to have
daily reports by calling the hospital I also called my doctor,.. a man far
beyond the ordinary medical man .. believing that if anything were possible he
would know it and if so I would by some hook or crook break through that .'all
so thrt he might apply his skill... but my own doctor, inl 'hom I have such complete
faith, said that there was virtually nothing that could be done. And so, indeed,
on iMonday it "'as all over... unbelievably. Up until that time there hal been nothing
in the newspapers, and I called Stad who had just heard it on the radio, telling
him to let you know. It w.as and still is something I cannot really believe.

Only the week before, on the 28th I had been on a Cinema 16 panel with him --
that panel concerning poetry and film which I had mentioned to you so much earlier --
He was sober, but when 'illard Ilaas had gone to see him a few days before -- in
connection wit'h the panel appearance -- he had found him in a state which gat that
time, he described as really incredibly bad physically from the constant drinking *
Willard said, at that time, that he vas appalled at his condition ( and W'illard is
not innocent or easily impressed in these matters). At the panel itself, however,
he seemed -uite allright although I felt in him a deep fatigue whichh I thought
of as being moral rather then physical. I felt that the public appearances which
he was making ravaged and ravished his poetic sensibilities, and I felt that his
detachment from his immediate surroundi:ins -- a detachment which he accomplished
more and more by alchol&c daze -- was a device for fesr insulating his most inner
self so that the ravages would affect only the Auter layers of him self.


To me, personally, he \was sweeter than ever before, warm and gentle -- as if he
had perceived a frailty -- and I remember wondering whether perhaps you had sopken
to him of me, or whether this new gentleness .,was simply a new expression -- which
he could permit himself in the absence of Caitlin -- of something he had perceived
befoi e. There had been, originally, a kind of immediate understanding which, at
that time, could not be built upon because of all those circumstance:. And no,,, again,
I felt that if it were not for all these drinking companions and other creatures
who clung about his celebrity like leeches we might have become close and good
friends.

I suppose it is a terrible thing to say, and yet I feel them somewhat responsible.
None of them risked his displeasure by attempting to discipline his drinking, or
his living habits. His bohemianism was a good show ... particularly if one were
part of it. They indulged it because they could share that, 'whereas they could
not share that secret life out of which his poetry came. Someone should have stopped
him -- should have had the courage you did when you gave him the money on the condition
he buy the railroad ticket with it and not liquor --

It is a terrible thing which has happened.

I will 'write again soon, \ ,-





I MUST TURN OVER ...
BEWARE OF LOCAL
EARTHQUAKES
BEDFELLOW CRICKET!
ISSA






01, 9n


SILENT THE OLD TOWN ...
THE SCENT OF FLOWERS
FLOATING
AND EVENING BELL
BASHO





35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.


January 23, 1956

Dearest Gene: J

The Foundation brochure which I mailed to Al Stadler while you were still
in town was intended for you. He must have dozensof them by now --
gets one in practically every Directors' mailing -- and I never dreamed he'
wo~xi imagine that was for him again. However, here are two more, enclosed.

We also sent you a Christmas card ... we made them up ourselves, by cutting up
a book of Haiki poems... and we spent quite a while choosing the most appropriate
one for you, which I did not leann by heart and therefore cannot recite. I remember
worrying, a little, about whether that very small envelope ... just a little larger
than the size oi hokku which I enclose ... would evr make it to Florida. I had
a foreboding hunch about the possibility of it' slipping, unnoticed into some corner
opf 'refe -ce to not having heard from me would indicate you never relieved it.-
Too bad. 'I remember chuckling to myself about how appropriate it was, bt of
course, now I can't remember what it was appropriate about.

I didn't"get to see Jimmy until just on New Years eve day, and deftly led the con-
versation around to his plans for spring, and learned that he plans to give the
apartment up'in March or thereabouts, I guess whenever the lease iscup. Apparently
he can't bear being in New York, when he wants to work, and his plans are to go to
Europe next fall to spend some time there. Since he would be spending the summer
up in his summer place in Stoneington ; Conn. he didn't see the point of keeping
the apartment. I suppose I should have written you immediately that your possible
use of Jimmy's apartment seemed to be unfeasible but I've been so god-damned
bus~ x stenciling reams and reams of by-laws, minutes, etc. for the Foundation,
in addition to my own efforts to keep distribution together, that it just didn't happen.

When I learned that Jimmy was giving up his apartment in March, I didn't broach
the possibility of your use of it, since it was my understanding that you were thinking
of it for much longer and later than that. However, if you think it would do you
any good in February, or so, I can bring it up. Sorry about this. I think it would
have worked if he was planning-to keep the apartment.

Any day now you will be getting Advisory Board bulletins and other mailing from the
Foundation. It's just impossible for me alone to move aftng any faster than this.

I've been a little disturbed, the last few times we've seen each other, at a sense of
not having direct -and immediate communication with you. It may be my imagination,
of course, but it feels as if we were both flying blind ( in reference to each other)
and knowing where the other one was by the indirection of instruments and cal-
culations perhaps even by signals and radio., which is all very fine since I trust
the instruments, but somehow less satisfying seeing you on my radar screen, than
it'would be to see you directly. I have always known, of course, that in general you
prefer to hold off any immediacy of contact, but lately it would seem to me that this
which was like a gentle buffer, or bumper, which one respected, had become more
adamant... as if you were now hiding around in an armoured aar. Since I never
see you with others, I don't know whether this applies solely to me, or whether it
is general. Sometimes it seems quite general -- a general anger and impatiebne.
.


WAtkins 4-0780


MAYA DEREN








Sometimes it seems to have a personally directed quality I think you wish for
me all the things you wish for yourself, and that I ought to have them, in the way
that you ought to have them and so ,jand addition to being angry in my behalf,
you are also angry at me ., as if,? in addition to the px, rastnt fact that it is
unfortunate for me put-as for you, Ian personally, there
.was also an impersonal failure involved in my not being in the circumstances in
which I should be... an impersonal failure of a standard, and hence, in a sense,
a betrayal of youwho espouse that standard, on my own as well as on your own
behalf. This Jshik sounds very complicated but it reminds me of.when George
Davis came for dinner in December. Teiji had been prepared very much to like
him, and he walkedin, and was introduced, and I saw TeiJi freeze, and he. went
back to the kitchen and whnt on cooking and I discovered -lk him there in an abso-
lute fury --so intense that he wouldn't come out to have before-dinner drinks
%jhius.. I couldn't understand it, and it did wear off during the even ing,,a after-
v.dsI' tried to get Teiji to explain it, and he couldn't. He didn't dr'dlli d it
at all. Gradually however, I discovered that when he *ad walked in, George
was standing with the, left side of him face to the light. That is the-side'that had
been bashed in, and although it was very well reconstructed, the left eye was lower
because of the lack of a cheekbone. I know George so well, that I did not. ee this
as much as my own image of him. But Teiji saw this and his fury, essentially,
j was at George because hex George should not have been beaten up. Because he
liked George, from all that he knew of him from me, he associated with George
a notion of things as they should be. It was momentarily, as if George had betrayed
Teiji's relieff in things as they should be, his trust that they could be as they should
be. Ibis, of course, linked up with Teiji's own experience of-being beaten up,,
and with his own effort to make himself believe that if you are good, bad things
won't happen to you. And he knows that George was good, and that B bad thing
happened, and he was furious at this evidence which aould make him despair,
and he chose anger instead of despair. k

The main-difference is that I do not feel that things are as bad for me as you think
they are. I know that, objectively, logically, you are right, and that, by now, things
should be different for me. Well, the crazy thing is(.that I don't feel the by now'
part of the idea. I feel like a kid, as if I am just starting, and that is my inner
reality. When I am with the Directors of the Foundation, for instance, or with so
many of my other friends, I feel embarrassed by my spontaneous enthusiasm,
impatiences, un-cautious --- well, I feel like a- god-damned juvenile delinquent
trying to behave herself among the elders. I have to hct grown-up with them be-
cause, after all, I'm supposed to be grown up. But I just don't feel that close to
being middle-aged. When I am with Teiji I can be myself -- can feel about them
as I truly do -- emaimqptimistic and with a sense of my whole life before me --
instead of as I should, according to the books, feel at this stage of my life.
Perhaps its a rather special kind of arrested development. I know Exx and under-
Sstand everything that I should at this stage, but my feeling about those knowledge
and understandings is as fresh as if it were not me who had suffered to habe them.

Is that good or aatlx bad?

yours,

)-4-




ADVISORY BOARD ( continued)


Joseph Campbell, President
Alexander Hammid,Vice-President
James Merrill, Treasurer
Maya Deren, Executive Secretary

Rudolf Arnheim
Louis Barron
John Malcolm Brinnen
Lewis Jacobs
Arthur Knight
fohn Latouche
Barney Rosset
M/eyer Schapiro
Kurt Seligmann
.lbert Stadler
james Johnson Sweeney
Amos Vogel


1 ADVISORY
BOARD

leorge Amberg
lene Baro
3ebe Barron
inn Barzell
Tan Benoit-Levy
Ialerie Bettis
Thomas Bouchard


Jean Cocteau
Janet Collins
Caresse Crosby
Julio De Diego
Frances Ferguson
Wallace Fowlie
Peter Glushanok
Martha Graham
Clement Greenberg
Hanya Holm
Alan Hovhannes
Gyorgy Kepes
Frederick Kiesler
Gavin Lambert
James Laughlin
Arthur Laurents
Leo Lerman
Alvin Lustig
Willard Maas
Norman McLaren
Arthur Miller
I.Rice Periera
Sidney Peterson
Sir Herbert Read
Day Schnabel
Consuelo Sides
Aaron Siskind
Frank Stauffacher
Ruth Stephan
Ellen Borden Stevenson
Val Teleberg
Parker Tyler
Mies Van der Rohe
Gore Vidal
Jose Garcia Villa


DIRECTORS
















CREATIVE

FILM
FOUNDATION

















35 MORTON STREET
NEW YORK CITY 14, NEW YORK
WAtkins 4-0780









The Creative Film Foundation has been founded
to encourage and promote the development of
motion-pictures as a creative fine art form. The
need for such a foundation arises primarily from
the fact that the motion-picture medium has been
.almost exclusively conceived of as a mass-com-
munications medium, to be directed at the widest
possible audience. Although the pressure towards
mass appeal is generally dominant in all the art
forms, there exist, nonetheless, various resident and
traveling fellowships, cash prizes and other forms
of subsidy and assistance which provide oppor-
tunities for poets, composers, dancers, painters
and other fine artists to freely experiment, de-
velop and create in their media. These subsidies
and assistance are supplemented by "little mag-
azines," paper-bound anthologies of new writing,
off-Broadway and cooperative theater groups,
dance-concert series in community centers, art
galleries, student orchestra performances of stu-
dent compositions, poetry centers and by various
other means. Altogether these provide an arena
of creative activity which serves not only to de-
velop individual talent, but acts, in general, as a
stimulating and vitalizing force in the evolution of
those art forms.

The creatively significant works which have been
produced within the motion-picture industry as
constituted are due to a fortuitous combination of
highly exceptional individuals and circumstances.
But an arena for the consistent exploration and
development of the creative potentialities of this
relatively new medium does not exist here, as it
does in the other art forms. Moreover, the costs
of even the most modest equipment and raw ma-
terials is even greater in this medium. The intent
of the Creative Film Foundation is to extend, to
this medium, the tradition of subsidy and assistance
which obtains in the other art fields and- to make
possible that creative, experimental activity es-
sential to the development of motion pictures as
a fine art form.






In organizing a group designed to fill this cultural
void, it was felt that the specifically creative
emphasis could best be reinforced if, in addition to
artists and critics in cinema, the Directors and Ad-
visors of the Foundation included individuals who
have been creatively and critically concerned with
fine art forms. The presence of such individuals,
it was felt, would contribute a point of view to-
wards creativity, experimentation and artistic in-
tegrity which obtains in the fine arts generally and
which has been largely lacking in the approach
towards motion-pictures as a specialized, indus-
trialized and primarily commercial field.













THE CREATIVE FILM FOUNDATION

"The purpose of this Foundation is to encourage
and promote the development of motion-pictures
as a creative fine art form. To this end it shall give
assistance to film-makers whose primary aim is
creative artistic achievement, whose productions
would not normally fall within the scope of the
existing educational and commercial agencies which
are involved in the sponsorship of information,
documentary or entertainment films (as these cate-
gories are generally understood) and who are
particularly concerned with exploring the filmic
medium, experimenting with its techniques and al-
together contributing to the enlargement of the
expressive range and scope of filmic vocabulary
and to the development of film form."
... From the Foundation Statement of Purposes






"The Foundation shall make its grants primarily
on the basis of the degree to which the applicant
is concerned with creative experiment in filmic
form and techniques; and it shall give preference
to projects of this nature even when the end result
is to some degree uncertain, provided they en-
large the existing range and scope of filmic vo-
cabulary and form .

"The Foundation shall interpret creativity and ex-
perimentation as a reference primarily to the man-
ner in which the film-maker composes his project
out of the available mechanical apparatus and
accessible technological procedures which consti-
tute the filmic medium itself. .

"The intention of the Foundation is to meet the
varying needs of film-makers whose projects fall
within its declared scope and considered approval.
To that end it shall not only seek to enlarge its
financial resources for grants of financial aid, but
it shall also accumulate, by purchase and donation,
such equipment as might be useful to film-makers
and its grants may take the form of equipment
loans where this will answer the need of the ap-
plicant. The Foundation shall also solicit the use
of studio and other facilities in behalf of those
persons deemed worthy of assistance; moreover,
it will be prepared to provide all such pertinent
information and assistance to such persons as will
enable them to advance in their profession. .

"In sum, it shall interpret its purpose of encourage-
ment and assistance beyond purely financial as-
sistance, and with an awareness of the fact that
even when the assistance which it can give is
limited by the resources and facilities at its dis-
posal, the act of assistance itself carries with it the
moral gift of encouragement, which is among the
important needs of an artist and film-maker .. ."
From the Foundation Standards and Guides







TYPES OF CREATIVE FILM
FOUNDATION GRANTS

Grants will be made in accordance with the principles, and
the standards and guides herein stated. The intention of the
Foundation is to give significant assistance to as many
projects as possible, according to its resources, and single
grants for the total cost of any individual project shall be
given only in exceptional circumstances.

Production Grant. The amount of each individual grant
shall be determined by the Directors with a view towards
making possible the realization of a significant portion of
the proposed project.

Additional Grant. Additional grants may be made to the
same individual, either in connection with the project for
which he received his initial assistance, or for another
project.

Equipment and Facilities Loan. Equipment and facilities
which the Foundation has at its disposal will be loaned to
applicants for production purposes.

Provisional Grant. A Provisional Grant means that the
Directors have in principle approved the application, but
that the grant is provisional upon their ability to find the
means of providing the required money, equipment or
facilities. In such cases they shall instruct the Committee
on Endowment to undertake action designed specifically to
meet these requirements. Funds, equipment or facilities
which are received explicitly in behalf of such a project
shall be designated for that project.

Emergency Grant. Special emergency grants may be made
for funds, equipment or facilities in situations where con-
ditions essential to the project might be irrevocably altered
by the delay of the period for the regular procedures of
application review. Emergency applications will be acted
upon as soon as possible and every effort will be made
to meet the emergency situation.

Loan-Grant for Exhibition. The Foundation may loan funds,
equipment and/or facilities for the purposes of exhibiting
a film when this would serve to advance the general
purposes of the Foundation and could not be adequately
accomplished by other means. When admission is charged
to such exhibition, the amount of the loan shall be repaid
to the Foundation from the gross receipts.

Educational Activities Grant. The Foundation may, accord-
ing to its resources, sponsor film festivals, lecture series,
exhibitions and publications, with a view towards educating
and enlarging the public for creative films.







REVOLVING FUND


In the event that a film towards the production of which
the Foundation has made a financial contribution shall show
profit, the Foundation shall receive 10% of its proportionate
contribution. Such monies shall constitute a revolving fund
to be used exclusively as grants for other projects.











APPLICATION

Application for Foundation grants may be made at any
time and are to be submitted to the Recommendations
Committee of the Foundation. Applications which are
judged to fall within the scope of the Foundation shall be
passed upon by the Board of Directors.

Grants will be made primarily upon the basis of past work
in film and upon an outline, in written or graphic form, of
the proposed project. In general, applicants shall be ex-
pected to have produced a film or to have contributed
substantially and creatively towards the production of a
film, and to be prepared to submit such a film as evidence
of their qualification. An interview with the applicant may
also be requested by the Recommendations Committee or
the Directors.

Application blanks and more detailed instructions to ap-
plicants may be secured from the Foundation offices, which
are located at 730 fth: Av ..., l'A Yrk 9,L iN f Y
uife 3-890 All requests will be promptly honored and all
applications for grants will be passed upon as quickly as
possible.


35 MORTON STE, ET, NEW YORK CITY 14








I



















ii
















CREATIVE

FILM

FOUNDATION

















35 MORTON STREET
NEW YORK CITY 14, NEW YORK
WAtkins 4-0780









The Creative Film Foundation has been founded
to encourage and promote the development of
motion-pictures as a creative fine art form. The
need for such a foundation arises primarily from
the fact that the motion-picture medium has been
almost exclusively conceived of as a mass-com-
munications medium, to be directed at the widest
possible audience. Although the pressure towards
mass appeal is generally dominant in all the art
forms, there exist, nonetheless, various resident and
traveling fellowships, cash prizes and other forms
of subsidy and assistance which provide oppor-
tunities for poets, composers, dancers, painters
and other fine artists to freely experiment, de-
velop and create in their media. These subsidies
and assistance are supplemented by "little mag-
azines," paper-bound anthologies of new writing,
off-Broadway and cooperative theater groups,
dance-concert series in community centers, art
galleries, student orchestra performances of stu-
dent compositions, poetry centers and by various
other means. Altogether these provide an arena
of creative -activity which serves not only to de-
velop individual talent, but acts, in general, as a
stimulating and vitalizing force in the evolution of
those art forms.

The creatively significant works which have been
produced within the motion-picture industry as
constituted are due to a fortuitous combination of
highly exceptional individuals and circumstances.
But an arena for the consistent exploration and
development of the creative potentialities of this
relatively new medium does not exist here, as it
does in the other art forms. Moreover, the costs
of even the most modest equipment and raw ma-
terials is even greater in this medium. The intent
of the Creative Film Foundation is to extend, to
this medium, the tradition of subsidy and assistance
which obtains in the other art fields and to make
possible that creative, experimental activity es-
sential to the development of motion pictures as
a fine art form.






In organizing a group designed to fill this cultural
void, it was felt that the specifically -creative
emphasis could best be reinforced if, in addition to
artists and critics in cinema, the Directors and Ad-
visors of the Foundation included individuals who
have been creatively and critically concerned with
fine art forms. The presence of such individuals,
it was felt, would contribute a point of view to-
wards creativity, experimentation and artistic in-
tegrity which obtains in the fine arts generally and
which has been largely lacking in the approach
towards motion-pictures as a specialized, indus-
trialized and primarily commercial field.













THE CREATIVE FILM FOUNDATION

"The purpose of this Foundation is to encourage
and promote the development of motion-pictures
as a creative fine art form. To this end it shall give
assistance to film-makers whose primary aim is
creative artistic achievement, whose productions
would not normally fall within the scope of the
existing educational and commercial agencies which
are involved in the sponsorship of information,
documentary or entertainment films (as these cate-
gories are generally understood) and who are
particularly concerned with exploring the filmic
medium, experimenting with its techniques and al-
together contributing to the enlargement of the
expressive range and scope of filmic vocabulary
and to the development of film form."
From the Foundation Statement of Purposes





In organizing a group designed to fill this cultural
void, it was felt that the specifically creative


DIRECTORS

Joseph Campbell, President
Alexander Hammid,Vice-President
James Merrill, Treasurer
Vaya Deren, Executive Secretary


ft


Rudolf Arnheim
Louis Barron
Tohn Malcolm Brinnen
Lewis Jacobs
Arthur Knight
John Latouche
Barney Rosset
UVeyer Schapiro
(Curt Seligmann
lbert Stadler
ames Johnson Sweeney
kmos Vogel

I ADVISORY
BOARD

leorge Amberg
;ene Baro
3ebe Barron
inn Barzell
lean Benoit-Levy
7alerie Bettis
gjhomas Bouchard


"The Foundation shall make its grants primarily
on the basis of the degree to which the applicant

ADVISORY BOARD (continued)

Jean Cocteau
Janet Collins
Caresse Crosby
Julio De Diego
Frances Ferguson
Wallace Fowlie
Peter Glushanok
Martha Graham
Clement Greenberg
Hanya Holm
Alan Hovhannes
Gyorgy Kepes
Frederick Kiesler
Gavin Lambert
James Laughlin
Arthur Laurents
Leo Lerman
Alvin Lustig
Willard Maas
Norman McLaren
Arthur Miller
ILRice Periera
Sidney Peterson
Sir Herbert Read
Day Schnabel
Consuelo Sides
Aaron Siskind
Frank Stauffacher
Ruth Stephan
Ellen Borden Stevenson
Val Teleberg
Parker Tyler
Mies van der Rohe
Gore Vidal
Jose Garcia Villa






"The Foundation shall make its grants primarily
on the basis of the degree to which the applicant
is concerned with creative experiment in filmic
form and techniques; and it shall give preference
to projects of this nature even when the end result
is to some degree uncertain, provided they en-
large the existing range and scope of filmic vo-
cabulary and form. .

"The Foundation shall interpret creativity and ex-
perimentation as a reference primarily to the man-
ner in which the film-maker composes his project
out of the available mechanical apparatus and
accessible technological procedures which consti-
tute the filmic medium itself. .

"The intention of the Foundation is to meet the
varying needs of film-makers whose projects fall
within its declared scope and considered approval.
To that end it shall not only seek to enlarge its
financial resources for grants of financial aid, but
it shall also accumulate, by purchase and donation,
such equipment as might be useful to film-makers
and its grants may take the form of equipment
loans where this will answer the need of the ap-
plicant. The Foundation shall also solicit the use
of studio and other facilities in behalf of those
persons deemed worthy of assistance; moreover,
it will be prepared to provide all such pertinent
information and assistance to such persons as will
enable them to advance in their profession. ...

"In sum, it shall interpret its purpose of encourage-
ment and assistance beyond purely financial as-
sistance, and with an awareness of the fact that
even when the assistance which it can give is
limited by the resources and facilities at its dis-
posal, the act of assistance itself carries with it the
moral gift of encouragement, which is among the
important needs of an artist and film-maker. .. ."
From the Foundation Standards and Guides







TYPES OF CREATIVE FILM
FOUNDATION GRANTS

Grants will be made in accordance with the principles, and
the standards and guides herein stated. The intention of the
Foundation is to give significant assistance to as many
projects as possible, according to its resources, and single
grants for the total cost of any individual project shall be
given only in exceptional circumstances.

Production Grant. The amount of each individual grant
shall be determined by the Directors with a view towards
making possible the realization of a significant portion of
the proposed project.

Additional Grant. Additional grants may be made to the
same individual, either in connection with the project for
which he received his initial assistance, or for another
project.

Equipment and Facilities Loan. Equipment and facilities
which the Foundation has at its disposal will be loaned to
applicants for production purposes.

Provisional Grant. A Provisional Grant means that the
Directors have in principle approved the application, but
that the grant is provisional upon their ability to find the
means of providing the required money, equipment or
facilities. In such cases they shall instruct the Committee
on Endowment to undertake action designed specifically to
meet these requirements. Funds, equipment or facilities
which are received explicitly in behalf of such a project
shall be designated for that project.

Emergency Grant. Special emergency grants may be made
for funds, equipment or facilities in situations where con-
ditions essential to the project might be irrevocably altered
by the delay of the period for the regular procedures of
application review. Emergency applications will be acted
upon as soon as possible and every effort will be made
to meet the emergency situation.

Loan-Grant for Exhibition. The Foundation may loan funds,
equipment and/or facilities for the purposes of exhibiting
a film when this would serve to advance the general
purposes of the Foundation and could not be adequately
accomplished by other means. When admission is charged
to such exhibition, the amount of the loan shall be repaid
to the Foundation from the gross receipts.

Educational Activities Grant. The Foundation may, accord-
ing to its resources, sponsor film festivals, lecture series,
exhibitions and publications, with a view towards educating
and enlarging the public for creative films.





~R~1~7"L~


Mr. Gene Baro
Cross Creek
Hawthorne, Florida


AIRMAIL


INFANT L
JOIN MA .





CREATIVE
35 MORTON STREET


FILM


FOUNDATION
NEW YORK 14, NEW YORK


V.
' -





Januauary 30, 1956
Dearest Gene:

One of the major images around which that circus film I was -- and still hope--
to make revolved was that trapeze act where the two 'artists' start off from op-
posite ends, and must time their swings so as to meet precisely so that one
can let go and grab hold of the other's diands, or so that they can exchange trap-
ezeses or what not. It is not what they do in the center which is significant to
me, it is the delicate timing of their travel towards one another so that they
arrive both, simultaneously, at the pinnacle of proximity. I have watch them,
and I have felt with them, -- how one, arriving a split second too soon must
(somehow force his trapeze to hover else it start its swing homeward before
the other arrives. I have felt with them the tensions of the travel -- for that
is the critical part --- to start at the right moment-- then the arrival will be
good.
It has fascination for me because, I think, it is for me the perfect metaphor for
the meeting of human beings. To be able to truly meet someone -- with my self --
not as in the A&P or s,, I must begin traveling out of my world swinging, swinging
towards them ... towards the moment and spa point in space where I can best es-
tablish contact. This is the sense of the preparations" about which you several
times teased ene -- asking how long it would take me to get ready to meet you at
a bar, or at the Spanish restaurant. It would probably surprise you to know how
many times, seeing someone I knew across the street, or coming down the blobk,
I would duck into a drug storeor otherwise hide, because I wasn't ready to see them.
The more important the person is to me, the more this is so, because I wish the
contacts to be real, rather than unreal,casual, meaningless.
This is probably what is wrong with ouymeetings of late.
You come to New York primarily for business reasons. You are in that frame of
ming. When you find a little corner of time left ofer from your various obligations
or commitments or appointments -- after you have been exhausted by the psychic
energy of those travels towards contact -- you phone me. I know that if I dsse
don't see you tonight, I may not have another chance. You never know when you
will be free again, or for how long you will stay. And I do want to see you, so I
say yes. But my frame of mind might have been already fixed and planned for
other things. I try to swing towards you, beginning at the time you call to say
you will come, but the swing is troubled by the fact that I had already begun in
another direction, and by the lack of time -- the spaces of the self are so vast,
how could it not take time to go from Wne border to max the other -- And you
arrive, and you too have not made the swing. And I feel that -- to justify your
spending of this precious time ( with so many import t things that you have to
jto and with so many worries on your mind) and to justify extending further this
fatigue which lies like lead on your eye -lids -- I must produce some miracle of
amusement or significant And of course, in the conditions of such anxiety, one
never functions well. IdxI eI aanx x It moses in me, this anxiety, and even far
worse in Teiji, who knows my regard for you, and would therefore particaiy make
contact with you, and lacking the assurance which I have and have also because
of other times with you when contact did exist, beautifully, idx I think, wishes to
somehow, in these few precious moments get through to you. How natural that
he should beat the drums When he plays the guitar you don't listen. So he beats
the drums to get through... because we're all in such a hurry tpget through, because
you're so tired and so busy. Music, of one kind or another, is deepest form of
speech. He is trying to talk to you.








Oh, I am very aware of outer reality. And Teiji, even more. But we do not think
of you as a part of that. The face we present to you is i not the one which I
bring to the lecture platform or that Teiji takes up the service entrance of the
jsSS S business buildings when he mades his deliveries of Cue during the
day. He looks like a delivery boct, like any other and can say I doan know
nuttin' aboud it' with the best of them, to a degree which is almost shocking to
me. When it is ansr necessary, we can, each of us, and he more than I,
" fit in". It has never occurred to either of us that it was necessary to parade,
for you, our wardrobe of disguises -- his as a mail-room clerk, or applicant
for membership in the Musician's union or mine as efficient secretary of
the Creative Film Foundation, or mature lecture' on the asethectics of film,
or what not.

You say that neither of us are Bihemians. If you know that, you should then inter-
pret things we do in that light, rather than regard them as strange departures.
Teiji's earring is a ritualistic, not a decorative object. Four years ago when he
had his ear pa pierced, he was a Bohemian bum in the Village Square to all out-
ward appearances. When he had his ear piercpd by a friend with an ordinary needle
he made, to himself, the pledge to better himself, inwardly. Shortly afterwards I
met him, or rather asked him to do the score, and no one will ever know the inward
ordeal of that year and a half when, from someone frightened, undisciplined, who had
never written a note of music, who did not believe in his own abilities, he came,
gradually, to a strength, and to a discipline, and to a creative act -- that score is
really very very fine)--. He had always been too eager to melt into what might
be the thing -- to become atmxxx an Italian hoodlum among Italian hoodlums, a
Village Bohemian among Village Bohemians -- and th wearing of the earring was
very difficult for him. People stared, and he was embarrassed. A thousand times
he wanted to take it off, but he wore it as a kind of test of individual strength --
it is linked to hi'determination an to be himself. He wore it daily for exactly
a year. That was it, and he had made his point to himself, an ordeal which he
mhB mastered. Then he -- who was thought to be the most indolent, laziest
of all and luxuriously resting upon his appearance -- got this humble job at
Cue to help with finances. Cue is the outside world. Emexa k Every morning
Tepji gets up a half hour earlier than he has to from a practical point of fiew.
Heu iIes around in the kitchen; is apparently engrossed in what he is to wear,
but I know that he is trying to start swinging from his own world to the Cule world
It takes him time every morning to g'eally arrive.

He has never worn his earring to Cue or on such occasions. But when we were
going to Haiti, this was something related to himself -- a deep thing -- and, as
part of the feeling that he was not for these precious few months, in the Cue world
but in his own, he wore it on the trip. And now, some times, from time to time,
on weekends, or in the evening, he puts it on just 'to keep the hole open' as he
says but in his mind it is the gesture whdch puts imx him in contact with himself.
He never wears it outside -- precisely because it -would be misunderstood and
taken for a decorative display -- and usually, if someone is coming, he takes
it off. He forgot he had it on the evening you came. He commented on this after-
warts, the fact that he had forgotten to take it off. He would not have forgotten if
the person who was coming was one who alerted all his pre-cautions and defenses.
He forgot with you, because he trusted you as one in whose presence he could fall
alseep safely.







It is most unfortunate, indeed, that you have not been able to hear any of Teiji's
music. You are discreet, but I know that what is "g bugging" you is the feeling
that I have. iva*v great deal of time and energy to an indivi~idal who, though charm-
ing, does not seem to have enough substance to warrant this ielaim r expenditure.
You are discreet because you are wise enough to know that it is impossible for
an a out-sider to know what and how much the partners of a relationship given
each other in privacy and in a deep sense. And I cannot, .f course, begin to make
this clear except to suggest that, perhaps one of the things involved, might be that
there are forests and interiors which only the pure of heart can penetrate to reach
the S&eeping Beauty, and Teiji is one of the very rare who is truly pure of heart.
But quite apart from that sort of bmox thing, consider, if you will the following facts!
The first score that Teiji- ever wrote .-.- and he knew nothing about writing music (so
little, in fact, that he had to consult the musical dictionary to find out how to indicate
certain rests) -- is considered to be of exceptional beauty and appropriateness by
persons like Tudor (who refused to let John LaTouche have another score instead)
Jimmy Merrill (who believes so much in him a3A that he wants to kk give him his
priceless European ppinet wkia4 while he is away in Europe),by various music cri-
tics, and even, finally, by John Latouche ( and it takes something of a miracle to make
Latouche reverse a stand). After the VERY EYE OF NIGHT score, and on the basis
of it, he was commissioned to do a score of a film on Buddhist sculpture PASSAGE TO
NIRVANA which is almost 13 minutes of clarinet solo, which is very difficult to do.
And then commissioned to do a score for an art film WORKS OF H. IMATISSE and
then commissioned to do a score for a Japanese Kabuki film, which he also insisted
8n editing himself not trusting the producer Walter L"wisohn to know how, so that
here is the first time a composer did the film editing, and in spite of the unfortunately
ss poor photography, it is a great success and ax is even going to be commercially
distributed kx in Japan. This is called THE CONSTANT GEISHA. In the meantime
he had been asked to do a score for a ballet, which he did, and it is being performed
by Mara, the Cambodian dancer, as one of her best numbers. iax In November and
December he planned the drumming and taught the drummers and himself performed
for two of Geoffry Holder.s concerts. And this January, Sasha asked him to do a
short score for an animated section of a film -- Sasha wanted abstract type sounds.
which Teiji produced with speeding up recorders, feed back soutl1s, etc. -- and
the producer was so enthusiastic that he called Teiji to come and run his other films
and as planning to commission more. All of these scores he did at night, after working
at Cue all day ( except the first.) All of them wereprofessionally commissioned and
used. Unlike the thousands of other composers which the music schools are daily
turning out, Teiji does not own one sin gpa~e of music which has not been used or
played. In the past three years, then, over ,000by his music -- it was money
saved from scores that made it possible for him to go to Haiti, I didn't pay his
way -- which is pretty damn good, working only at night and not at commerical
TV type of thing. In the meantime, also he has learned to play the guitar, which
has taught him a great deal about orchestration and harmony, earned a diidx weekly
wage which has kept us going, built furniture, shelves, fixed the Creative Film Foundation
Studio, does all our mimeographing stuffing and mailing, and what not. But to get
back to the music part, these scores have ragged from strictly oriental to modern to
even a hot-jazz section in the Matisse. Obviously, the guy has got something musically.

I worry aboul the smell of urine in the house. It isn't urine, incidently,
its the male cat sray which is supposed to seduce female cats. If I had more time to
clean and launder, it would be unnoticeable, and when we are expecting somebne, I make
a great effort but you never let us rknow enough in advance. I just can't bring myself
to make a eunuch out of my great male cat 0-auL.fJ- 6 e1 7 ,







Anyway, now T have to get back to being a secretary and a distributor and a business
woman. So good bye Gene,

much love,









P.S. My criticism of the Georgians and Floridians was not akk that they were bizarre,
which would have made things interesting, whawkiwlxMxeae It was a morale criticism.
If the Georgians had worn straw boaters, that would have been bizarre; but whenthey
made loud, pointed, challenging remarks in a restaut'ant deliberately d~k designed to
frightened a negro who was in there ( all this had nothing to do with Teiji and I, who
were not personally inconvenienced or mal-treated by any Southerners) that's not
merely bizarre, that's vicious. If all the lar Lords of their Castlen in Cross Creek
kept swans in a bathtub on their front lawn, that would be bizarre; but when they
keep uxi vicious dogs and have guns and tern-peraments such that the wise person
will not approach a house but must stand in the road shouting his identity -- well,
that creates, in the mind of reasonably tiendly and unsuspicious people like ourselves --
Exomx an impression of violent mores, somewhat more cxtical in nature than being
merely bizarre. Now, its possible that there is so much vicious trespassing in Cross
Creek that it is best to have a gun and a vicious dog and to shoot first and ask questions
later, but that, you must admit, is a rather unusual condition.





-P U


.56
7'


Gene Bartfo
Cross Creek
Hawthorne, Florida


AIRMAIL


JOIN MARCH OF MES

JOIN MARCH OF DiMIES





MAYA DEREN


61 MORTON) STREET


NEW YORK 14, N, Y,














Mr. Gene Baro
Cross Creek
Route #1
Hawthorne, Florida





CREATIVE
35 MORTON STREET


FILM FOUNDATION
NEW YORK 14, NEW YORK





35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.


March 15, 1956

Dear Gene:

How nice to hear from you. I had meant to answer your latt note -- and
to assure you that I was not offended -- but as you can guess from the bulk of mater-
ial which you received re: the Foundation activities, I have been completely snowed
under carrying the burden of this myself. I enclose, for your amusement, a
personal memo to the Directors which I felt obliged to send out at a certain point.
This can perhaps give you an inkling of tPe various problems, J7 lAvu-eir : a*-

Another problem which was completely unanticipated was the fact that
the off-Broadway little theater movement has flourished to such proportions that
it has become impossible even to rent a sewer on 2nd avenue --- they've all got
a theatrical performance going on in them. It took me 73 phone calls to find a
home for our first forum, on Dance and Film, which is finally being housed in
Hanya' Holmes' studio. I am now desperately looking for a place for our music
forum, scheduled for the 6th of April. Then there as all that mailing to be gotten
out ( and for some terrible reason Bsea emx there no longer exists, among
students, any tradition of volunteer zxpx labor in behalf of worthy causes) and
films to be arranged for for running at the forums, and stencils to be rmagX
knocked out, and all kinds of problems so I am, as you can imagine, desperately
rushed.

Thanks for your suggestion about recording the forums. This had already
occurred to me way at the beginning and I have already arranged with Dance Magazine
to perhaps carry an article condensed from the Dance forum, and for the magazine
Film Music to probably carry a similar thing from the Music Forum. My original
idea and I kaxing haven't mentioned it around much until I see how the forums
sound, is to try to get some publisher to publish a paper back on Film and Related
Arts, based on th sforumy Perhaps you have some ideas on who should be approached.
When "You spoke of publication, what did you have in mind?

Very hurriedly, with a thousand notes and letters to get off before
I collapse for want of sleep,

1 e,
loie

fx


MAYA DEREN


WAtkins 4-0780






Personal Memo from the Secretary, Maya Deren, to the Directors
of the Creative Film Foundation.

I do not have the time to edit and tailor this to an attractive length*
(I am reserving such energy for the formal announcements and press releases
tvhich you will receive in a day r so) so please prepare W to sustain your at-
tention span to approximately two pages).

I am aaot a mah-jongg playing suburban matron who has been looking for
something 'civic' to fill up my spare time; nor is Lthe typing of stencils, the
collation and stapling of pages, the stuffing and stamping of envelopes, the keeping
of mailing records, files, accounts, etc., my idea of a creatively satisfying activ-
ity or an efficient use of my particular talents and capacities.
T am a film-maker,of the kind which this Foundation seeks to encourage,
and derive my livelihood from the distribution of my films, along with lecture-dem-
onstrations, articles, etc. If, during the course of this late summer, fall and win-
ter I had devoted, to my own affairs, one-half the concentration, creative thinking,
time energy and menial labor which I have given to Foundation work, I would be in
great shape and there would be no Foundation, practically. The time-consuming
pressures of headquarters (including filling the cr s in the floor with putty and
waxing twice ) by-laws, directors meetings, and all the actual labor involved in
the activities summarized in the Secretary's report, have prevented me from
finishing my Haitian films, putting out a catalogue and general mailing for the dis-
tribution of my films, made it necessary for me to limit my fall lecture tour to
a ten-days absence amd, in view of the accelerated activity with regards to the
forums, annual awards, and what not for this spring, make it impossible for me
to absent myself for the customary spring lecture tour, the proceeds of which nor-
mally sustain me through the summer. The time I give to the Foundation is not
time which I have but time which I make -- bobbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter
has been cleaned out by now.
I am doing all this because, as a film-maker, I know ise important it is
not only in practical terms but as a matter of morale, that this Foundation not only
keep alive, by hook or crook, but that it flourish as proof of the validity of the prin-
ciple on which it is based and as an encouragement to young creative minds to con-
der film as a form of art to go ihto. I also know that someone has to do the hard
dirty work to #et something like this started and I volunteered and am still willing
to do it.
My willing acceptance of the necessary burdens has, however, apparently
encouraged a substantial portion of the Directors to relax completely and to add,
each In their own way, ( and each is small but 16 bits and pieces can add up to a lot
of bulk) to the demands upon my time. It appears, in some cases, that the sheer bulk
of the mimeographed material which I am obliged to send out, is psychologically
overwhelming so that some ignore even the Memo which summarizes what is enclosed
and indicates what immediate action is to be taken and what stuff can be put aside
for later reading matter. What am I supposed to do? Address 17 envelopes three
times and use three times 17 stamps just to break up the bulk of a mailing so it
will be less forbidding? Draw pictures to make it more entertaining? Make each
copy an original to give it that personal touch which engages the ego?







As a result, I am obliged to write one reminder, and then another, and then phone,
and keep track of who I called, who was in, when they will be in, when I can call
again ( for many of you do not return calls) to get checks on the availability blanks,
to get waivers, to remind about proxies, to check on attendance, to cajole, urge,
nag and threaten. All this is perculiarly reminiscent of Mummy running after
the children to put on their rubbers, to eat their cereal, to do thetv homework,
to promise them they can play ball later if they practice their piano now and under
the circumstances, my feeling about this is rather uncomfortable.
There is also a tendency to let Mummy Maya worry about where the next
rent and money for stamps and more envelope printing and all those phone bills
and mimeographing and all that is coming from, and an innocent confidence that
somehow the Lord will provide and Mummy will manage, as she always has done
up till now, Bless her heart. My father was a psychiatrist specializing in child
psychology for children of above -averge intelligence and sensibilities and the
knowledge I picked up from him has undoubtedly stood me in good stead. However,
it is no substitute for time and, with the increased demands of our increased ac-
tivity, I must ask the (Directors for a greater and more prompt degree of coopera-
tion in the small things which I request and must request, of them.
I appreciate the fact that all our Directors are busy and active people,
byt that includes me too. Charity begins at home. As a creative experimental
film maker I deserve your cooperation and consideration. Please respect my time,
too, and please remember that a few minutes of effort on the part of ;16 people in-
dividually is equal to days of labor for one. I know that none of the Directors in-
tends to create problems for me and it seems, to each one individually, that their
small neglect or postponement is a really very minor matter. But when you get
16 men, of an average height of 5'11" and an average weight of 160 lbs all dragging
their feet a little, it adds up to a virtually immovable force for a 5'2", 124 lb female.


I have asked for, repeatedly, and still need, very much, the following:

One or more young reasonably energetic girls preferably with typing
ability, to help get out the mailings, keep track of who got what, copy
letters to people we want on forums (these all have to be individual
original copies) transfer typed lists to filing cards for mailing list
etc. Many of our Directors teach classes. They are all attractive
gentlemen. Surely there are some girl students somewhere who would
be delighted to be devoted to such a worthy cause.

Mailing lists -- drawn from your address books, -- of people who might
respond favorable to our appeal for Sustaining membership.

Help in raising money. If each director made just one try for a donor,
the law of averages would probably turn up at least one.

Please don't make it necessary for me to call you back on these things.


yours, nevertheless,


Maya Deren















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MAYA DEREN FILMS


Some critical comments:
"... superbly dramatic and heroically tragic, the filming a
thing of sheer beauty and breathless imagery, filled with a strange and wonderful
poetic quality ... for any movie goer anxious to view ... stirringly effective illus-
trations of the best work of the avant-garde movement in this new and different
kind of film making ..."
Jesse Zunser, Cue Magazine
"... Unquestionably the real spark of this American (avant-
garde) movement has been the tireless Maya Deren ... no one has seen one of her
films without being stimulated by the freshness of its imagery and its sheer tech-
nical virtuosity. No one has left a performance without sensing the fact that she
had opened new fields for cinema -- or, more correctly, had re-opened a field that
had lain fallow for almost twenty years ..."
Arthur Knight, Saturday Review
"... Heretofore the dance has either been filmed unimagina-
tively ... or has been cut up and distorted to make a cameraman's holiday. In Maya
Deren's approach we have the beginnings of a virtually new art of 'chorecinema',
in which the dance and the camera collaborate on the creation of a single work of
art ..."
John Martin, New York Times Dance Critic

Among the honors received: EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL 1955; First International
Prize Avant-Garde Class, Cannes Film Festival, 1947; Belgium World Film Festi-
val 1949; Swedish Film Festival 1953; Sao Paolo Film Festival 1952; John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Work in the field of Motion Pictures, 1947-8.
Author of: AN ANAGRAM OF IDEAS ON ART, FORM, AND FILM; also, DIVINE
HORSEMEN ( a study of Voodoo in Haiti); and articles in Modern Photography,
Mademoiselle, Flair Dance Movie Makers, etc.; and of still photographs in U.S.
Camera, Theater Arts Mothly, Museum of Modern Art, Harper's Bazaar, etc.

Lecturer at universities, art museums and film societies, including Chicago, Ber-
keley, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon, Seattle, Syracuse, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Wayne, Yale, Rochester, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.

For information regarding film rental and lecture-demonstrations, write to:


35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N.Y.


MAYA DEREN




A Choreography for Camera ( 16mm, bl. & wh., 15 min )


THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT

Conceived, Directed, Filmed and Edited by MAYA DEREN.
Choreographic collaboration Antony Tudor; Assistant director Harrison Starr;
Lighting director Ernst Neukanen; Dance notator Philip Salem; Recorded by Louis
and Bebe Barron; General assistance: M. Arsham, R. Borenstejn, H. Esterly, M.Kha-
zoom, M.Kraft, B. Stauffacher. Made with the cooperation of the Metropolitan Opera
Ballet School.
Music by TEI J I ITO.

Cast: Noctambulo .Philip Salem ; Gemini Richard Sandifer Don Freisinger; The
Satellites: Ariel Patricia Ferer Titania Barbara Levin, Oberon Bud Bready;
Umbriel- Genaro Gomez; ITJranus Richard Englund; Urania Rosemary Williams.
*
If the earth is round, if the world turns, then the bright heaven of day is the
dark abyss of night, and the difference between them is no more than time, the time
of the earth's turning. The sun-door and the sea-floor are the same thing in the same
place, seen now from below and now from above and named, by the seer, for the mom-
ent of seeing. We fall asleep; the laws of micro- and of macro-cosm are alike; travel
in the interior is as a voyage in outer-space; we must in each case burst past the
tension of our surface -- our here-space and our now-time -- to enter worlds mea-
sured by light and sound. This film lives in the world of this idea; this idea can live
only in the world of film.

This is a metaphysical, celestial ballet of night. The film is in the negative.
The blackness of night, as the opposite or apposite of day, erases the horizontal plane
of the earth's surface and the movements both of the dancers and of the camera, re-
leased from responsibility to a horizontal plane, become as four-dimensional and
directional as those of birds in air or fish in water. By day we move according to
desire and decision; by night Noctambulo is moved by gravities. Advancing with the
blind, incalculable accuracies of a sleep-walker, led by the twins Gemini (as eyes
are twins or as the I is twinned) he is drawn to the celestial center which revolves
eternally in the dark geometry of its orbit from the beginning of time.
When the film was first conceived ( in 1949) that constellation was invented
to represent the archetypal Self of every man: as in the beginning, the center is of
two parts; and the satellites are the four cardinal potentials or directions -- circling
around the center which they both contain and extend. After the film was finished
(1956), the search for appropriate titles and names revealed that the universe itself
had already been pleased to invent such a figure long, long ago. Uranus ('father of
heaven') is the seventh major planet; Urania, his mythological female counter-part,
is an epithet for Aphrodite; the names of the foui satellites, as known in astronomy,
have been adopted for the four cardinal points in this film (see cast above); and man,
creature half of day and half of night, half of heaven and half of the abyss, is both
contained in and contains this totality ( see Da Vinci's proportions of man.)


The original score by Teiji Ito is a layer-on-layer tape recording ,scored
for flute, bass clarinet, clarinet, Balinbse brass gamelon, Balinese marimba, and
three Haitian drums. Mr. Ito performs all the parts except flute and bass clarinet.

Address all inquiries & return film to MAYA DEREN,35 Morton st., N.Y.14, N.Y.







Pre-catalogue announcement of a


NEW CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA


by MAYA DEREN


THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT


Made in collaboration with Metropolitan Opera Ballet School students
under the direction of Antony Tudor, with an original score by Teiji Ito.

A film in which both the movements of the dancers and those of the cam-
era have been choreographed into a celestial ballet of night, as the opposite
or apposite of day. The film is in the negative. The blackness of night
erases the horizontal plane of the earth's surface and the movements of
the dancers and of the camera, released from any reference to a horizontal
plane, become as four -dimensional and directional as those of birds in the
air or of fish in water.




The Very Eye of Night is Miss Deren's most classical film. Against
a heaven at once timeless and personal her figures exist in what must be
recognized as an ideal vision of earthly relationships. One thinks of
Racine. The concluding lines of Berenice, Let us all three serve as
examples to the universe...' might be an epigraph to this film, if it needed
one. The musical score is of the utmost discretion and beauty."

James Merrill,


This film, completed very recently, has already been honored by pre-
sentation at the EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL, 1955.


THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT is 16mm, black and white, sound, running
time, 15 minutes. Rental per day: $15.00


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION WRITE TO: MAYA DEREN,
35 MORTON STREET, NEW; YORK 14, N.Y.






MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943)

by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammld

The mind begins with the matter at hand-with the Inci-
dental curve of a road or the accidental movement of a pass
Ing figure. As it perceives these, it possesses them as Images.
as the stuff of which It composes its night and day dreams
In the forms of Its desires and despairs. But the mind Is not
completely master of these Images, they are charged wllh
the primal, Indestructible energy of their origin matter
And thus It may occur Inal, of an afternoon, these resolve
captives of memory refreshed by new contexts and re
leased by the lax discipline of sleep may triumphantly
regain the province of actuality














AT LAND (1944)

Conceived and directed by Maya Deren. Technical assistance

Hella Heyman and Alexander Hammld.

The universe was once conceived almost as a vast preserve.
landscaped for heroes, plotted to provide them with appro.
private adventures. The rules were known and respected, the
adversaries honorable, the oracles as articulate and as pre-
cise as the directives of a six-lane parKway. Errors of weak-
ness or vanity led with measured momentum, to the tragedy
which resolved everything Today the rules are ambiguous,
the adversary is concealed in aliases, the oracles broadcast
a babble of conlradlctions. Adventure Is no longer reserved
for heroes and challengers. The universe itsell Imposes It?
challenges upon the meek and the brave Indiscriminately
One does not so much act upon such a universe as re-act Io
Its volatile variety, struggling to preserve. In the midst ol
such relentless metamorphosis a constancy of personal Iden
Illy.


CHORGORAPHIES FOR CAMERA

The space of the field, the ritual temple and the theater
stage have been; historically, a place within which dancers
moved, creating, in terms of their own capacities and human
limitations, the physical patterns of emotions and ideas. Bul
cinema provides a different order of space, Is able to create
a different kind of time, can even cause the human body to
perform innuman movement. These cnoreographles for camera
are not dances recorded by the camera; they are dances
choreographed for and performed by the camera and by hu-
man beings together.


PAS DE DEUX

(formerly A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA 1945)
By Maya Deren and Talley Beatty

A lyric episode in which the camera Is the partner of Tal-
ley Beatty, transporting him from point to point, supporting
him in extended, accelerated pirouette, sustaining him in an
attenuated leap.






RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME (1945-46)

Conceived and directed by Maya Deren. Photographed by
Hella Heyman. Choreographic collaboration: Frank WestLrook
Principal performers. Rita Christiant and Frank Westorook.

A Ritual Is an action distinguished from all others In that it
seeks the realization of its purpose through the exercise of
form. In this sense ritual Is art, and. even historically, all art
derives from ritual In ritual. Ihe form Is the meaning. More
specifically, Ihe quality of movement Is not a merely decora-
tive factor. It Is the meaning Itself of the movement. In this
sense, this film Is a dance.

This quality of Individual movement, ana, above all, the
choreography of the whole, Is. mainly conferred and created
by tllmic means-the varying camera speeds, the relating of
gestures which were. in reality, unrelated, the repetition of
patterns so complex as to be unique in actuality, and otner
means. In this sense, the film confers dance upon non-dancers,
except for a passage In which the large pattern and the Indl


vidual action coincide, briefly, in Intention. Thus the elements
of the whole derive their meaning from a pattern which they
did not themselves consciously create: just as a ritual -
which personalizes by tne use or masks, voluminous garments,
and homogeneous group movements-luses all individual ele-
ments Into a transcendent tribal power towards the achieve-
ment of some extraordinary grace.

Such ettorts are reserved for the accomplishment of some
critical metamorphosis, and, above all, for some Inversion
towards lile; the passage from sterile winter into fertile
spring, mortality into Immortality; the child-son into the man-
father, or, as In this film, the widow Into the bride.
Being a film ritual. It Is achieved not In spatial terms alone,
out in terms ol a Time created by the camera. Time here is
not an emptiness to be measured oy a spatial activity which
may till It. In this film It not only actually creates many of
the actions and events, but constitutes the special integrity
of tne forms as a wnole.




MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE (1948)

By Maya Deren. Performed by Ch'ao LI Chi. With Music:

Chinese flute and Haitian drums

The camera can create dance, movement and action which
transcends geography and takes place anywhere and every-
where; IIt can also, as In this film, be the meditating mind
turned Inwards upon the idea of movement, and this idea,
being an abstraction, takes place nowhere or, as It were, In
the very center of space There the Inner eye meditates upon-
II at leisure, Investigates Its possibilities, considers first this
aspect and angle, and that one, and once more reconsiders,
as one might plumb and examine an Image or an Idea, turn-
Ing it over and over In one's mind.

The subject of tnis meditation is the movements which have
been In traditional usage in two schools of Chinese boxing-
the Wu-Tang and the Shao-Lln-for several centuries. The di-
verse sense and spirit of the three orders ol movement are
not merely registered by the camera, but, rather, are recreat-
ed In filmic terms, as the meditating mind of the camera both
lashnons and Is fashioned by the subject it considers. During
Wu Tang the film flows witn as constant a continuity and
recreates visually the regular cadence of the breathing which"
is the physical pulse of the movement itself. During Shao-
Lin, It confronts with direct attitudes and abrupt rhythms the
formal aggressions. In the climactic duel It becomes Itself the
embattled, blinking, frantically shifting adversary.







CHOREOORAPEHS FOR CAMERA

The space ot the field, the ritual temple and the theater
stage have been; historically, a place within which dancers
moved, creating. In teims of their own capacities and human
limitations, the physical patterns of emotions and ideas. But
cinema provides a different order of space, is able to create
a different kind of time, can even cause the human body to
perform inhuman movement. These choreographies for camera
ale not dances recorded by the camera; they are dances
choreographed for and performed by the camera and by hu-
man beings together.





PAS DE DEUX

(formerly A STUDY IN CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA 1945)
By Maya Deren and Talley Beatty

A lyric episode in which the camera is the partner of Tal-
ley Beatty, transporting him from point to point, supporting
Shim in extended, accelerated pirouette, sustaining him In an
attenuated leap.






RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME (1945-46)

Conceived and directed by Maya Deren. Photographed by
Hella Heyman. Choreographic collaboration: Frank Westbrook.
Principal performers: Rita Christiani and Frank Westbrook.

S A Ritual Is an action distinguished from all others In that it
seeks the realization of its purpose through the exercise of
lorm. In this sense ritual Is art; and, even historically, all art
derives from ritual. In ritual, the form Is the meaning. More
speclllcally, the quality of movement Is not a merely decora-
tive factor: It Is the meaning its6ef of the movement. In this
sense, this film is a dance.

This quality of Individual movement, and, above all, the
choreography of the whole, Is' mainly conferred and created
by filmic means-the varying camera speeds, the relating at
gestures which were, In reality, unrelated, the repetition of
patterns so complex as to be unique in actuality, and other
means. In this sense, the film confers dance upon non-dancers,
except for a passage In which the large pattern and the Indl-







vidual action coincide, briefly, In Intention. Tnus the elements
of the whole derive their meaning from a pattern which they
did not themselves consciously create; just as a ritual -
which personalizes by the use of masks, voluminous garments,
and homogeneous group movements--uses all Individual ele-
ments into a transcendent tribal power towards the achieve-
ment ot some extraordinary grace.

Such efforts are reserved for the accomplishment of some
critical metamorphosis, and, above all, for some Inversion
towards Ille, the passage from sterile winter Into fertile
spring; mortality Into Immortality, the child-son Into the man-
lather, or, as In Ihis film, the widow into the bride

Being a film ritual, It Is achieved not In spatial terms alone,
out In terms ol a Time created by the camera. Time here Is
not an emptiness to be measured by a spatial activity which
may till It. In this film It not only actually creates many of
the actions and events, but constitutes the special integrity
ol the forms as a whole.




MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE (1948)

By Maya Deren. Performed by Ch'ao LI ChI. With Music:

Chinese flute and Haitian drums

The camera can create dance, movement and action which
transcends geography and takes place anywhere and every-
where; It can also, as In this film. be the meditating mind
turned inwards upon the Idea of movement, and this idea,
being an abstraction, takes place nowhere or, as It were, In
the very center of space. There the Inner eye meditates upon"-
it at leisure, Investigates Its possbillitles, considers first this
aspect and angle, and that one, and once more reconsiders,
as one might plumb and examine an Image or an idea, turn-
ing It over and over In one's mind.

The subject of this meditation is the movements which have
been In tradiltonal usage in two schools of Chinese boxing-
the Wu-Tang and the Snao-Lln-for several centuries. The di-
verse sense and spirit of Ihe three orders of movement are
not merely registered by the camera, but, rather, are recreat-
ed In filmic terms, as the meditating mind of the camera both
fashions and Is fashioned by the subject It considers. During
Wu Tang the film flows with as constant a continuity and
recreates visually the regular cadence of the breathing which'
is the physical pulse of the movement Itself. During Shao-
Lin, It confronts with direct attitudes and abrupt rhythms the
formal aggressions. In the climactic duel It becomes itself the
embattled, blinking, frantically shifting adversary.







MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943)


by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid

The mind begins with the matter at hand-with the Incl
dental curve of a road or the accidental movement of a pass-
Ing figure. As it perceives these, II possesses them as images,
as the stuff of which II composes its night and day dreams
In the forms of its desires and despairs. But the mind Is not
completely master of these Images; they are charged wiln
the primal, Indestructible energy of tneir origin matter
And thus It may occur Ihat, of an afternoon, these restive
captives of memory refreshed by new contexts and re
leased by the lax discipline of sleep may Irlumphantly
regain the province of actuality.














AT LAND (1944)

Conceived and directed by Maya Deren. Technical assistance

Hella Heyman and Alexander Hammld.

The universe was once conceived almost as a vast preserve,
landscaped for heroes, plotted to provide them with appro-
priate adventures. The rules were known and respected, the
adversaries honorable, the oracles as articulate and as pre-
clse as the directives of a six-lane parkway. Errors of weak-
ness or vanity led, with measured momentum, to the tragedy
which resolved everything. Today the rules are ambiguous,
the adversary is concealed in aliases, the oracles broadcast
a babble of contradictions. Adventure Is no longer reserved
for heroes and challengers The universe lisell Imposes its
challenges upon the meek and the brave Indiscriminately.
One does not so much act upon such a universe as re-act to
Its volatile variety, struggling to preserve. In the midst of
such relentless metamorphosis, a constancy of personal Iden
Ilty.






FILMS BY









PREMIERE


0tinfty TuC r


PREMIERE!


NEW SOUND VERSION OF MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON


AND
CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA


JAPANESE SCORE BY

-PAS DE DEUX-


AT LAND


- 7:30 PROGRAM ONLY -


RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME

MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE


- 8:45 PROGRAM ONLY -

-10:30 PM PROGRAM ONLY


2 MONDAY EVENINGS FEBRUARY 2 AND 9
3 PROGRAMS EACH EVENING AT 7:30; 8:45; 10:00
4 FILMS EACH PROGRAM EVERY PROGRAM INCLUDES
'THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT'. 'MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON', AND
'CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA'. THE 4TH FILM IS AS SCHEDULED
BY PROGRAM TIME ABOVE.
AT THE LIVING THEATRE 5306TH AVE. -14ST.-
ADMISSION $1.50 -TAX INCLD.- FOR RESERVATIONS CH 3.4569


MUSI C v],I


Ito


ALSO


Its





111 1 I


FILMS by MAYA DEREN
"...superbly dramatic and heroically tragic, the filming a thing
of sheer beauty and breathless imagery, filled with a strange and
wonderful poetic quality..."
Jesse Zunser, Cue Magazine
"...the real spark of this American (avant-garde) movement...
no one has seen one of her films without being stimulated by
the freshness of its imagery and its sheer technical virtuosity...
without sensing the fact that she had... reopened a field that
had lain fallow for almost twenty years..."
Arthur Knight, Saturday Review
"...the beginnings of a virtually new art of 'chorecinema' in
which the dance and the camera collaborate on the creation of
a single work of art..."
John Martin, New York Times
"...Miss Deren's intuitive grasp of the formal principles of tra-
ditional art and understanding of the pertinence of those prin-
ciples to the modern quest for a spiritually significant visionary
language gives an importance to her work which far transcends
that of a technical exploration of the potentialities of a new
medium. She is expanding the art of the film by reintegrating
traditional principles of visionary search and realization that have
been largely lost to contemporary life..."
Joseph Campbell, author, Hero With a Thousand Faces.
"...This cinema delivers us from the studios: it presents our
eyes with physical facts which contain profound psychological
meaning; it beats within our hearts or upon our hearts a time
which alternates, continues, revolves, pounds, or flies away...
One stands before spatial events and within the value of their
lime... One is in the reality of the cinematic fact, captured at
that point where the lens cooperates as a prodigious discoverer.
This renewal of the contact between cinema and an essential part
of its means and ends opens up so much out of which intelli-
gence, sensibility and inventiveness can create poems. Poetry,
after all, is the feast which life offers those who know how to
receive with their eyes and hearts, and understand..."
Le Corbusier
MUSIC by TEIJI ITO
Tokyo-born Teiji Ito comes from one of the leading "theatre
families" of Japan and made his first public appearance at .he
age of six, as drummer for his mother in concerts of Oriental
dance, in which the authentic instruments, music and costumes
were used. His father, a musician, costume-designer and authority
on Oriental forms, took charge of the music, staging, lighting,
etc. For Teiji Ito, then, the principles and practices of Japanese
Noh drama, Bugaku, or Kabuki, or Balinese and Korean dance,
were not matters of academic theory but were part of the
daily reality of the household. Furthermore, as a performing mu-
sician, he developed an intimate working feeling For the instru-
ments themselves: Balinese gamelon, Hindu tablas, Korean and
Japanese drums, flutes, etc. After being brought to America,
while still very young, he became concerned with various Occi-
dental forms--jazz, Spanish flamenco, West Indian drumming--
and, in the course of these enthusiasm, became a clarinetist, a
guitarist and a drummer (including a visit to Haiti to study with
native drummers.)
Unique and particular as this personal background is, it would
seem to have been expressly designed to prepare him for film
composing: it has provided him with an extraordinary range of
musical vocabulary for the great variety of filmic themes, sub-
jects and styles; it has trained him to a keen awareness both of
traditional principles and creative possibilities in the relationship
between visual action (whether dance or drama) and musical ac-
tion; and since film scores are a recorded medium, he can use
his unorthodox and exotic instruments, rhythmic patterns and
musical techniques for which other trained performers are un-
available, by playing and recording against himself (using ear-


phones) to build up his orchestration la,erlonr IyIr.I Bltl the
modern score for THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT and the Japanese
score for MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON are multi-layer record-
ings and owe their special virtues as film scores to Teiji Ito's
unique combination of musical talent, fortuitous personal back.
ground and modern recording techniques.
Mr. Ito has composed extensively for both art and documentary
films. The scores, usually multi-layer, range from traditional
Kabuki music (THE CONSTANT GEISHA) to abstract sounds pro-
duced by manipulation of recording speeds, for a documentary
on deisel engines (OPERATION HOUR GLASS) to a Caribbean score
complete with calypsos. He has also composed for the off-Broad-
way production of ABSOLOM, for Mara and her Cambbdian
ballet, was musical director and arranger for Geoffry Holder,
has performed on drum, flute, clarinet and guitar for dance
concerts and on TV, and has even sung meringues in Creole
with a Haitian dance band


MAYA DEREN .


I i I I I I I


Maya Deren is the writer, director, camera-woman and sometimes
an actress in her avant-garde films, which she began making in
1943. Two years later she rented the Provincetown Theatre in
New York for the first public screening of 16mm avant-garde
films, an event whose exciting success stimulated the subsequent
founding of Cinema 16, as well as the development of the
American avant-garde film movement. A STUDY IN CHOREOGRA-
PHY FOR CAMERA, which was made and shown in that year, has
been particularly influential in creating an entire style of dance
film. Altogether, Maya Deren's films have won numerous festival
honors and awards, and are widely distributed nor only in uni-
versities and museums in America (where she has lectured exten-
sively on film as an art form) but throughout ihe world, includ-
ing Australia and South Africa.
In 1947 Miss Deren received the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever
awarded for "creative work in the field of motion-pictures" and
went to Haiti with the intent of filming some of the ritual dances
for inclusion in a large experimental opus. This trip, however,
marked a temporary suspension of such film making, for her
interest in Haitian Voudoun (or Voodoo, as it is popularly called)
led to the writing of DIVINE HORSEMEN (Vanguard Press) which
is generally acknowledged as the most comprehensive book on
the subject. (Sharp insights... precise and poetic observation...
a minor classic..." New York Times.) This Haitian period also
involves her in recordings of the ritual and secular music, to be
shortly released by Cadence as a series of six LP records, and
in the filming of ceremonies, which she is editing into a docu-
mentary film on the subject. It is in connection with these Haitian
activities that she has come to public attention in the past few
years, with articles and still photographs in magazines, and va-
rious TV appearances, including the Mike Wallace TV interview.
THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT is Miss Deren's first new film since
1948. Although it is an extension of her use of camera action
and time as an integral part of the theme and action of the film
itself (instead of the camera recording or commenting upon
events which take place in front of the lens) it constitutes such
an original extention of that concept that its realization posed
technical and formal problems for which no guiding precedents
existed. Several years were spent in intermittent experimentation,
first on the filming of the dance action, then on the use of
several layers of superimposed animation, and even on film
printing processes. Miss Deren is not only radically original in
her concepts of film form but so painstakingly resolves the new
problems which they pose that the finished product gives no
evidence of technical complication but directs the attention of
the audience entirely to the thematic statement. It is this accom-
plishment which gives Maya Deren her leading position among
film-makers both as a technical innovator and pioneer and as a
creative artist.


LL L W
I.L
IL a











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*?* $ ."->


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35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.


November 10, 1958

Gene Baro
Bennington College
Bennington, Vermont



Dear Gene,


This is by way of confirming our phone conversation regarding
a lecture demonstration at Bennington in March. I am delighted that it could be-
arranged, and of the four dates which you mentioned as available, the 19th of
March is by far the best for me..

The fee of $125.00 -- which I presume includes my transportation
costs -- is of course,, acceptable. I suppose that as the date approaches I
will be given details as to the time and length of the session, etc.

A number of universities in that general area have, at various
times, inquired about a lecture-demonstration and I think I shall try to schedule
some other stops thereabouts ,, so if the 19th is not right for you, won't you
let me know immediately.

I certainly do look forward to Ba1nhigton lecture Thank
you so much for arranging it.

yours,


MAYA DEREN


WAtkins 4-0780





35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.


Dearest Gene-:

Enclosed is the formal confirmation of the lecture date.l.... is that what was
needed,

By this same mail I am also sending a letter to Wallace Fowlie res Haiti. The
political situation has decreased enormously the tvamist travel to Haiti and
there will be no problem at all about his having a place to stay.. As to exactly
what place --- that depends on exactly what he had in mind I've explained
all this to him,, and expect to hear from him on it.

I went to buy tapes for you the other day but came away without them because
I wasn't sure about what you needed. You see there are various kinds of tape
made. -For example, they make a tape which is thinner than the one you have at
present. The advantage of this is that more tape fits on to a spool which means.
that you have a much longer playing time per spool. The disadvantage of such
tape is that, being thinner, it is obt a strong and a trifle more likely to
break if you work it back and forth a lot. That is why, for original musical
recording such as we do here,, we do not use this thinner tape since it would be
pretty bad if an otherwise perfect recording broke and had to be spliced together
and would miss a beat. Teiji also feels that the thinner tape does not have quite
the fidelity as the other tape -. Now, you, on the other hand,,might find this
thinner tape a great advantage if you are dictating because you could get much
more onto a single tape and also it would not be such a catastrophe if, by some
chance it did break and had to be spliced together since, if you are merely
dictating, the recording is not your final product but only for the typist.
This thinner tape -- which is called Mylar Extended Play tape -- gives you one
and a half times the time that you get on regular play. That is, 0-5 spool
would give you 23 minutes of playing time instead of 15 minutes ( or, if you are
recording at the slower speed, it would give you 3/4 of an hour instead of 1/2
hour). This tape only comes on 7" spools but we could wind it on to 3 spools
for you on our machine. If I got you this Mylar tape it would come to about
$1.50 per 23,minute ( 900 feet) uaxam 5 inch spool, because they have a special
safe on this tape now if we buy it on the larger spool and wind it onto the smaller
ones for you. Otherwise, the normal price of the regular 5 inch 15 minute spool
of tape is W.10 So let me know what you want.

In a few days we are going to mail up to you some of your poems as songs. ITeji
is having some difficulty with them, since he finds that he writes for voice-'as
if voice were an instrument and so he has discarded about 20 versions of songs.
Working with Adrienne is good for him in this connection, since he is learning
about what a voice can or cannot do, what ixxnub a singer needs in the way of
background ,. etc. i~f Writing for voice is a completely new problem for him,
and so is the problem of writing for words, but once he gets the basic problems
solved in his mind an in his ear, then he can really start moving fast on it.
I am very sorry, now, that we did not insist that you record a reading of your
poems to leave with us. I do not mean that we needed a finished reading performance,
but it would have helped him enormously if he could hear the poem read as you intend
it -- with the accents, stresses, pauses, etc, which would render the interpretation
you intend. So, if you feel like it one of these days, read off some of your
poems and mail us the tape. It will help him a great deal Once he is clear as
to the interpretation of the poem, then that will leave him only the problem of
realizing it musically.

Lvhst go now,

Love:love love love love love


MAYA DEREN


WAtkins 4-0780





ORA, BUILD YOUR
UoPM z WISELY, S
K 9' U.S. SAVING


Gene Bare
Bennington College
Bennington, Vermont




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MAYA DEREN '

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35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.


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THE LIVING THEATRE
530 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS
NEW YORK 11, N. Y.


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For immediate release: From: The Living Theater
530 Sixth ave (14th st)
New York 11, New York

Living Theater Series Prsents Lctires on Films by
RYA DEREN ( April 18th) and PARKER TYLER( May 2nd).
Maya Deren, prominent experimental film-maker, will discuss basic prlin
elples governing the creative use of the film medium this Saturday, April 18, at
2:30 PM, at the Living Theater, 530 6th avenue, which is currently presenting a
Saturday afternoon series entitled Creative Theater: Lectures in the Form of
Inquiry.,

Miss Deren's lecture ,"Moving Pictures: Motor-Driven Metaphysics will
deal with the formal and philosophical concepts implicit in the actual techniques of
the medium. She will discuss the meaningful use of the motor and the mobility of the
camera to create "an art form based not on the earth-bound, step-by-step narrative
idea of time, space and relationships which reflected the petty materialism of the
19th century, but on the poetic, meta-physical concepts of the actual nature of reality
which were contained in the most ancient visionary myths and which are daily con-
firmed by our most advanced sciences -- from physics to psychiatry./"

Miss Deren, whose latest film THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT had its New
York premiere at the Living Theater in February, has written and lectured exten-
sively on film as an art form and is also the author of DIVINE HORSEMEN (Vanguard
Press) a study of the Voudoun religion of Haiti.

Parker Tyler, noted art and film critic, will discuss another aspect of
film as an art form on Saturday, May 2nd. "The Uses of Theater: Stage versus
Screen will be an illustrated lecture that dramatically defines the distinction
between stage space and screen space as elements of artistic technique.

Mr. Tylet is a poet and is well-known for his lectures and writings on
the arts, particularly on both painting and film and the relationships between these
and other art forms. He is the author of several books on film, including "Hollywood
Hallucination", "Magic and Myth in the Movies" and "Chaplin, Last of the Clowns"
He is at present associated with the Art News.

Other lectures scheduled as part of the Creative Theater series are:
Eric Bentley The Psychology of Melodrama"; Joseph Campbell "Aesthetic
Arrest: Greek and Oriental Theater; Erick Hawkins cNodern Dance as a Voyage
of Discovery"; and M.C. Richards "Artaud: The Theater and Its Double". Mr.
Bentley's lecture is on April 25th and the other lectures are on successive
Saturday following Mr. Tyler.


The price of individual admission th .$ 1.50






PLEASE POST


TWO MORE EVENINGS OF


films


MAYA DEREN


chamber


by


2 MONDAY EVENINGS
MARCH 6 AND 13


PROGRAMS
7:30 9:00


EVERY PROGRAM INCLUDES
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT
CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA


10:30


Music by
TEIJI ITO


and AT LAND ( 7:30 only);
RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME ( 9:00 only)
J MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE ( 10:30 only)


ADMISSION $1.50 -TAX INCLD.-


AT THE LIVING THEATRE

530 6TH AVE. -14 ST.-
FOR RESERVATIONS CH 3-4569


.Chamber music is more than a
form; it is a concept of artistic
statement: it is abstract rather
than narrative in structure; it
is devoted to economy rather
than to elaboration; and it is de-
pendent upon a meticulous ex-
ploitation of its selected instru-
ments. In the case of chamber
films, the idiom is visual and
the instrument is the camera.
i : __ *


M-


I -;-?





Some comments on Maya Deren Films

"... Poetically dramatic experimental films ... the most beautiful, inspiring and rewarding
of the current avant-garde films... an extraordinary motion picture experience... "
Jesse Zunser, Cue Magazine

"... striking and wonderfully imaginative creations ... a Deren masterpiece .. Teiji Ito
has composed a stunning score... "
Walter Terry,Herald Tribune

"... clarity of purpose ... images, universality of symbols ... a masterpiece of cinema to
which 7Teiji Ito has added what is probably the most dramatic American film score ... she
is an artist using cinema in its purest sense..."
Jonas Mekas, Village Voice

"... She is expanding the art of the film by reintegrating traditional principles of visionary
search and realization that have been largely lost to contemporary life ... "
Joseph Campbell

"... The subject is always relationship ... The means of expression is motion, conferred by
the ordering of space and time;... the formality and order of these films is a key to infinite
extension... The camera is a metamorphic instrument when Miss Deren controls it, no
merely passive eye; and her films imply a notion of the universe as old as Zen and as new
as modern physics."
Gene Baro, Bennington College

"... the beginnings of a virtually new art of 'chorecinema' in which the dance and the camera
collaborate on the creation of a single work of art..."
John Martin, New York Times

"... no one has seen one of her films without being stimulated by the freshness of its imagry
and its sheer technical virtuosity... "
Arthur Knight, Saturday Review



Maya Deren is the recipient of the first J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship ever
awarded for 'creative work in the field of motion-pictures' Her films have won numerous
festival honors ( Brussels, Edinburgh, Sweden, Sao Paolo, 1st International Pize Avant-
Garde, Cannes, etc.) and are widely shown in universities, museums, film societies in Amer-
ica and throughout the world, including Australia and South Africa.
She is also well- known as a lecturer and a writer on film, as well as a still-
photographer and is the author of DIVINE HORSEMEN ( Vanguard Press) which is generally
regarded as the most comprehensive book on the Voudoun religion of Haiti.

TEIJI ITO

Teiji Ito composed both the Japanese score for MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
and the modern score for THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT. In addition to numerous film scores,
he has composed for dance and theater, including "20 poems of e e cummings" for the Jean
Erdman dance company, the score for the cafe-theater production of "KING UBU, and others.
He is also the composer and performer for two off-Broadway productions which are playing
currently: THE JUNGLE OF CITIES by Bertolt Brecht which has been produced by the
Living Theater and for three Japanese Plays ( including two by Mishima) which were dir-
ected by Herbert Machiz and are currently playing at the Players Theater. Both the scores
for these productions have won exceptional critical esteem.






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M'AYA DEREN 35 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N.Y.
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HOW TO GET TO WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK
By car: New York State Thruway to Kingston, exit 19. Woodstock is 15 min from
Kingston via routes 23 and 375. Traveling time: approx. 2 hrs. By bus: Pine-hill -
Kingston Bus Corp., Port Authority Bldg. 8th ave & 42nd st. Leaving New York City
Friday or Saturday AM: 8:00, 9:30, 11:30. Leaving Woodstock, Sunday evening :
6:25, 8:25. Traveling time: 2 hrs., 5 min. Fare: one way $4.51; round trip $8:14.

Both the Maya Deren and the Teiji Ito events are at the Colony Arts Center in Wood-
stock, on Rock City Road, one block from the Post Office. ORiole 9-9346.




PLEASE POST'


COLONY

ARTS

CENTER


01


ROCK CITY ROAD


-


AT of the


by


MAYA


DEREN


Riole 9-9346.


One Block From Post Office


WOODSTOCK, N. Y.


LECTURE- SCREENING
July 10 & 11, Friday & Saturday, 8:45 PM (Admission $1.50)
... APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES COMMON TO THE OTHER ART FORMS ...


ART MUST BE ARTIFICIAL


JLY 10th


THE TIME-SPACE OF MOVING PICTURES JULY 1 F


OF THE
VERY


FOLLOWING FILMS WILL BE SHOWN EACH EVENING.
EYE OF NIGHT choreography- Antony Tudor music Teiji Ito
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON music Teiji Ito
AT LAND
CHOREOGRAPHY FOR CAMERA
MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE
RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME


". .ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRING AND REWARDING OF
AVANT-GARDE FILMS AN EXTRAORDINARY MOTION-PICTURE EXPERIENCE"
Jesse Zunser Cue Magazine
S. STRIKING AND WONDERFULLY IMAGINATIVE CREATIONS .
A MASTERPIECE ." Walter Terry, Herald Tribune
AN ARTIST USING CINEMA IN ITS PUREST SENSE. "
Jonas Mekas, Village Voice


A m0v e


WORKSHOP


MEMBERS WILL


WILL BE


BE THE CAST


MADE 111
0 0


AND CREW.


COMPLETE WORKSHOP INCLUDES: I planning; II filming; III editing; IV sound. StagesI & IV in New York City;
stages II & III in Woodstock, Students may enroll for : (A) Complete production course ( 3 weeks, July 6 25) $70. ;
(B) Woodstock location-workshop ( 1 week, July 10 16) $30,; (C) Weekend Workshop (July 10, 11, & 12 ) $ 12 50 ;
or $5.00 per day (on July 10,11,12 only). ENROLLMENT DEADLINE: Thursday July 9, 5 PM Colony Arts Center ,
for Woodstock location or weekend workshop (B or C) or single day participation.


For complete details write Maya Deren, 35 Morton street, N.Y. 14 until July 7th; or to the Colony Arts Center.


1I.


FOUR
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1


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COLON
ARTS
CENTER


Y


I


ORiole 9-9346.


ROCK CITY ROAD One Block From Post Office
WOODSTOCK, N. Y.
FR i.an SAT. Ju ly 17,18


ORATORYa RHETORIC of DRUMS


TEIJI ITO
-composer of film & ballet scores, musician, drummer-


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.MAYA DEREN 61 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N Y.




Dear Gene:

Many many thanks for your heartening letter and also for arranging to have it
arrive at such a propitious moment. I was on-my way to argue with my publisher,
and was able to carry it from the mail box to his office. Your request for
the manuscript and your praise of the book ( incidently, they want to know
if they may quote you on that) impressed him and made our whole discussion
much easier for me.

I am Anclosing a vast amount of typing relative to the sound recordings. Now
you can see why it took me so long to get around to doing this. Use your
discretion in presenting Ui to the committee or what not. Your request for
relevant data and comments made it hard for me to know where to stop. I am
'enclosing an article on Haitian dance, and I thought of enclosing my chapter
on drums and dance from the book aut I had no really extra copy. However, if
you feel it important to have this also, I will type a'copy of that chapter
for that specific purpose.

I have given a precise estimate of the eost of recording, but I had no way of
knowing how to list the compensation for my own time. As you know, I have to
earn my living by what I do from day to day, and I could not put aside the time
it would take to do all this unless I had living cost compensation. I entrust
all such estimates and discussions to you. I don't know at what rate the academic
world estimates the value of time.

I am now two months in arrears on my rent I know that this will indicate to you
the difficulty of my present situation and the need for utmost haste if any money
is going to come from this source.

I'm enormously honored that you want the manuscript and very grateful for your
complimentary remarks on it. I am glad, now, that I had the whimsical notion
of writing my book on beautiful flue second sheet paper. I did that so that
all manuscript wtkting would be easily distinguishable from all the distribution
correspondence and other writings ling around the house and so would not get
lott. However, I had no idea that my ordeal would be preserved for posterity,
so that I am afawkd that mostly what remains is just the last typed draft with
its last corrections. I used more than four reams of paper on the book, but
when a page would get so marked up with changes and corrections and revisions
that I couldn't see it clearly, I'd type it up cleanly, throws out the marked
up sheet, and begin marking this one up all over. I do have the original type-
script of Campbell and I talking the book out into the Webster recorder. I do
most of the talking, with Joe playing straight man. The interesting thing is
that it looks like nothing at all when compared to the final book. In other
words, I have the first step and the lave the last step and they bear no relation
to each other because the whole evolution lies between those points. I will look
through all that stuff. Maybe I can find some of the intermittent material.

I have spent intermittent parts of the last two days drawing up an estimate on
S the LILAC GARDEN filming. So many povblemst Today I was going to have lunch with
Tudorand discuss pe centages, performers fees, camera rehearsal, costumes, location
etc with him but he couldn't make it at the last moment so we have a tentative
date for tomorrow. You should be getting a letter from me about this within two
or three days, as soon as I can get together with him*







Then there is the problem of can I do it without running into the unions
Then there are the rights to the music. An estimate is a hell of a thing
to put together.


I, too, am terribly sorry to have missed you before you left. I hope a
trip to Florida works out for me. I would enjoy Florida; and I would especially
enjoy seeing you there and not under the rather strange edge of tension autt
which the pressures of New York seem to confer upon our meetings.

You must know that I'm grateful, very much, for all these efforts youx are
making on my behalf. Even if it did not benefit me personally, it would
please me as a principle ( and you know that, for Russians, the principle
has always a personal impact) that you actually and practically do something
about art The Muse, the Goddess seems to attract so many weaklings, so)
many incompetants whereas what she really needs, above all, is more warriors
like yourself, like, I think, myself. Indeed, who deserves them more than sheL

I will write very soon, about the filming.

meanwhile, my very very best and most fond greetings,





MAYA DEREN


61 MORTON STREET


NEW YORK 14, N Y.


In addition to the actual recordings, it would seem necessary for the University
to have the following reference material:


An Index of the recorded material
An amplified guide, giving either the translation of the song ( where
are not in African"langage" or otherwise indistinguishable) or
description of its sense and ceremonial funtt&an.
Accessory informations, including a general description of the drums,
other musical informations.
Copies of articles referring to this material and a bibliography.


the words
a brief

drum -lore,


Th addition to such written and recorded material it would seem extremely
desirable to round out the data by a selection of Still Photographs, showing
the drums, aspects of how they are made and beaten, and various dance postures
and figures as well as several general photographs showing the peristyle where
the ceremonies take place, the center post, the procedures of ceremony, etc.
so as to give one a concrete idea of the role of the singing and drumming in
relation to the ceremony.

I would further recommend, and if this were possible it would make the study
really rich, prints of selected portions of my 16mm motion pictures of the
actual ceremonies and dances, some of it filmed in slow motion for an extremely
precise analysis of complex dance movement.




M"WA DEREN


WORKING TIME


Actual recording time( 15 hours) plus preparations.

Indexing, amplified guide, descriptions, accessory
information, bibliography



Selection and printing of still photographs
Add $15-4a5 photographic material costs

16 mm film selection
Working time -- editing, selection, etc. etc.
Laboratory costs for 500 or 15 minutes of film
-- approximately $75.00 for print
from negative.

Insertion of explanatory titles into film, if
desired -- $25.- $50.


3 days


3-5 days.



1-2 days


5 days


Any estimate of compensation must take into consideration the fact that
this material -- sound recordings, film and stills -- is the product of
a personal investment over a period of 4 years and 3 trips to Haiti ;
That this outlay was made with great difficulty and only in the conviction
that this material was of inestimable ethnic and cultural value; and that
this a&tlay representing a total of approximately $10,000 must be even-
tually re-couped from the various uses to which the material is subsequently
put and from those institutions who benefit from it,


61 MORTON STREET


NEW YORK 14, N Y.




,YA DEREN 61 MORTON STREET


COST ESTIMATE

Based on the recommended selections, totaling approximately 10 recorded hours.


( I am submitting estimate for both tape and disc recording, but I would kery
strongly recommend the choice of tape Inasmuch as I will be recording from
my original wire recordings, it will be necessary for me to ;t2x run through.
sections of the wire in order to arrive at the zzz section selected for re-
recording. This means a good deal of editing, or working activity, during the
course of which it is inevitable that there Be "false starts" and other errors.
If I am working onto tape, such small errors can either be erased, or spliced
out; if I am working onto disc, I would have to start a new disc. Any failures
of the recording mechanism can be erased or corrected on tape whereas disc requires
a discard of the disc with a failure and a reorecording of all the ma trial on
it. In other words, a transcription onto tape represents an inestimable saving
of money and time. The perfected tape can later be put onto disc if the Univer-
sity so desires, or selections from it. )

At the record

Tape cost: Retail $5.50 per sppol. With 20% discount -- $14,0 per spool


Recorded at 15' per sec, or 15 minutes per spool
40 spools ---
An estimated 15 hours of recording studio rental
(5 hours margin for running through unselected
wire, editing activities, etc., in addition
to the 10 hours of actual recording)
@ $10 per hour


Recorded at 7 1/2 per sec, or 1/2 hr. per spool
20 spools --
Fifteen hours studio rental @ 10 per hour


$176.00




$150600
326.00


*
88.oo00
125000-
238.00--


Recommended
choice


Disc.
At 33 1/3 l.p. or 1/2 hour per side
Recording cost $7.50 per 1/2 hr side
10 hours, or 20 sides .......
Fifteen hours studio rental @ $10. per hour


Incidental expenses( wire -recorder transportation, wiring
of recording out-put, in-put, etc.etc. ) Estimate


$150,00
$150.00
$300.00


$ 25.00


RECOMMENDED CHOICE PLUS INCIDENTALS


NEW YORK 14, N Y.


$ 263,00




AYA DEREN 61 MORTON STREET NEW YORK 14, N Y.



Voudoun -- or what has been popularly known as
Voodoo -- is a system of religious beliefs and practices made up of the in-
dividual contributions of the diverse African tribes which were originally
brought to Haiti. Each of these tribes had its own religious tradition, its
own divinities and rituals, music and dance. Inasmuch as certain basic concepts
were common to them all, these traditions were united, in the course of time, into
a system which might roughly be compared to a congress of tribes, in which the
separate traditions retained, to varying degrees, their own identity while being
incorporated into the over-all organization. The Arada traditions ( of Dahomean
origin) are dominant both in terms of ritual and in the number of divinities
contributed to the general pantheon; the Petro rites ( of New World origin) with
major traces of Indian influence) are another important segment, representing
what might roughly be termed a more aggressive, "magical" tradition. These
two major traditions have largely absorbed the other tribal traditions, although
these latter are still identified in drum beats, songs, and even separate ritual
practices -- as in the case of the Congos and the Ibos. Thus, in the course of
a ceremony, a major divinity of the pantheon will be saluted by a drum beat and
dance called Yanvallou ( of the Wydah trive), secondly by the Mahi tribe beat
and dance, and finally, by a Nago beat and movement.

The original tribal sources are also retained
in terms of specific divinities, because these loa as they are called, are
understood to be transmitted in family lines. Thus Erzulie Dahomey Freda is
generally accepted as the major Goddess of Love, but there is also an Erzulie
Dantor, and Erzulie Ge Rouge, and many other Erzulies ( which might be under-
stood as varying aspects of the same major principle) which have their own
characteristic songs, invocations, personality, etc. Thus, although the same
divine principles are invoked in all general ceremonies, the particular
aspect may differ from one ceremony to another, with its special characteristic
songs, and this decision is dependent upon the family line of the officiating
houngan ( or priest), and by various other ritualistic considerations. Thus,
each divinity is related to a vast literature of music, and the total musical
literature of invocation for the entire pantheon is incalculable in extent and
diversity.

In addition to such invocations employed in general
ceremonies for eating the gods, there are many songs concerned with specific
rituals: The Bruler-Zin ( the Fire ritual) which is related &6 both initiation
and other important occasions; special and annual ceremonies relating to the Dead
and the God of the Dead, Ghede; ceremonies referring to the baptism of a houngan p
a set of drums, a new place of worship, etc. ; ceremonies entirely directed towards
a specific divinity -- i.e. the ceremony for Agwe, God of the Sea, employs the
conch shell horn and the trumpet which are not employed in the regular saluation
to Agwe when it is merely part of a general ceremony for the pantheon. There are,
fothermore, songs and music relating specifically to the ritualistic activities,
and are designed to call the worshippers together, or attend the drawing of the
vever ( sacred symbol) etc. Finally, there are ritual activities which, while
they cannot property be called music, are so integrated into the ceremonies
that, as the recordings indicate, it is almost impossible to makk the transition
from such acts to the actual singing. Among the sounds which come under this
heading are not only the chanted prayers, but also the batteriese maconnique" ,
a symbolic knocking upon the door of the other world ( the world of the divinities
and the ancestors) which seeks to establish communication between the mortals and
the immortals.




MAYA DEREN 61 MORTON STREET


The recordings which are described on the following
pages unless otherwise noted, were made during actual ceremonies and these
were "normal" ceremonies -- that is, they were not pafd for and staged specifically
for visitors or recording or filming purposes. To my.knowledge, this makes them
unique. There is no electricity in the interior and I know that I was the first
person to take a portable recorder ( Webster Wire Recorder) into the country and
record by means of an automobile battery. F-1a.i4 nrt t is possible that ,
in the last year or two, other people may have followed this example but in no
case has it been carried on over a period of 1& months. To my knowledge the other
Haitian recordings which exist were made in the city at special recording sessions.
While the singers m in such cases were authentic natives and the songs were
also authentic, the fact of singing specific requested numbers in a hotel room
does not constitute an authentic condition. These persons are accostumed to
singing as part of the ceremonial context, and to singing songs according to
a tradition order determined by the hierarchical order of divinities in the
pantheon. In many cases they may have never been in a hotel room before* Such
a displacement and violation of religious contextand integrity could not but
affect the religious sincereity and ritualistic projection of the performance*
The music is an integral part of the ceremony whose logic is, in turn, governed
b the metaphysics of the mythology. To separate it either in theory or in
practice, is to violate that principle a principle which should be respected
in the course of recording even if the eventual plan is to select specific
songs out of the total recording, ( I am enclosing an article on Haitian dance,
which discusses the distortions resulting from any effort to consider the dance
as an art from separate from religion.)

The recordings here listed do not represent my total
recordings in Haiti. I have recorded many many ceremonies, and then later selected
the best portions, and erased the remainder of the wire, in order to record another
ceremony. It was physically and financially impossible for me to have enough wire
to preserve everything. In selecting my material to preserve I have been guided
by three major considerations: ceremonial authenticity -- recordings representa-
tive of the actual order of ritual and musical procedure; variety -- preserving
specific songs tzm which were not sung during other recorded ceremonies; musical
quality -- preserving the best rendition musically speaking, in cases where
the same song may have been recorded on different occasions*

These same considerations have governed the selection
I have recommended ( indicated in red) for the university* It includes complete
records, samples of special ceremonials and the diverse tribal traditions, as
well as selections notable for the excellence of the rendition. This is not, how-
everm a minimal selection. If the cost of re-recording these ten hours would
seem prohibitive, it would be possible to make a representative, but limited
selection, of five hours for example. On the other hand this 10 hour selection
would also be vastly enriched by adding some spools of the ILE DE VER CEREMONIE
CAILLE ( pate 2) and a greater portion of some of the other spools.

I might add that if the University were interested
in preserving as much as possible of this material on Haitian music and ritual,
I would consider it logical to give my considerable collection of drums and cere-
monial objects to the library (or appropriate department) as a bequest, and a por-
tion of the collection to be given in the very near future since the housing and
care of such objects is not ve y feasible in a metropolitan apartment. I have
approached Haitian culture and mythology as an integrated whole, of which all parts
are interdependent and interactive, and I would be please to know that the results
of my research were kept together as a totality,


NEW YORK 14, N Y.