KINETIC CINEMA PRESENTS A SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH MIMI GARRARD

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Dir. Mimi Garrard
USA, 90 min.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM

Guest Artist, Mimi Garrard will show works in video from 1964 to 2014 spanning her prolific career as a dancer with the legendary Alwin Nikolais, as a choreographer, and later as a video artist. The program features the work of Mimi Garrard, Alwin Nikolais, James Seawright, and Bela Tarr. It includes work created outdoors and in the studio, in color and black and white, from pure movement to theater.

Mimi Garrard studied and danced with Alwin Nikolais and his colleagues at the Henry Street Playhouse. He produced her concerts from 1964 to 1971. In the early 1970’s she began touring under the National Endowment Touring Program, performing in colleges and universities throughout the United States as well as in South America. Her last concert for the stage was in 2001 at the Kitchen. September 11, 2001 she saw the twin towers fall from 155 Wooster Street where she was living at the time. This was a catalyst for change and she decided to create dance for video.

In 2002, she began to produce half-hour programs for Manhattan Neighborhood Network which gave the incentive to work consistently. She has created 148 programs to date. Her video work is also shown in festivals worldwide, and is in museums and galleries. In the Spring of this coming year she is looking forward to a new adventure showing her collaborative work with James Seawright on the dome of the planetarium in Jackson, Mississippi in a biennial program honoring Eudora Welty. She received a life-time achievement award from the Institute of Arts and Letters in Mississippi.

ABOUT KINETIC CINEMA

Kinetic Cinema is a regular screening series produced by Pentacle in conjunction with Spectacle and curated by invited guest artists who create evenings of films and videos that have been influential to their own work as artists. When artists are asked to reflect upon how the use of movement in film and media arts has influenced their own art, a plethora of new ideas, material, and avenues of exploration emerge. From cutting edge motion capture animation to Michael Jackson music videos, from Gene Kelly musicals to Kenneth Anger films, Kinetic Cinema is dedicated to the recognition and appreciation for “moving” pictures. We have presented these evenings at Collective: Unconscious, Chez Bushwick, IRT, Launchpad, Green Space, Uniondocs, CRS, 3rd Ward, Fort Useless and The Tank in New York City, as well as at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

For more info on the current Kinetic Cinema season please visit Pentacle’s website.

Kinetic Cinema is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.