MOCA MOVING IMAGES | Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti
Wednesday, August 7, 7 – 9:00pm
By Maya Deren
This documentary explores the rituals of three Vodou cults whose origins stem from Africa. The viewer is introduced to a pantheon of spirits who communicate to their worshipers. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Haitian folklorists Lucrèce Louisdhon and Louines Louinis. We will also have a pre-show display of rare and antiquated books related to Haiti from the Miami-Dade Public Library Special Collection and archives.
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Haitian National Treasure and Master Folkloric Dancer Louinès Louinis demonstrates Haitian dance modalities during the intermission of the Maya Deren “Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti” Screening accompanied by Mrs. Lucrèce Louisdhon Louinis and master percussionist Laurent Walter. Mr. Louinis danced with the noted choreographer Katherine Dunham Dance Company in the 1940s #MOCAmovingimages ・・・・・・・・・ #Repost @simoneyvetteleigh ・・・ Katherine Mary Dunham June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." While a student at the University of Chicago, Dunham took leave and went to the Caribbean to study dance and ethnography. She later returned to graduate and submitted a master's thesis in anthropology. In the early 1940s, Katherine Dunham engaged the future experimental film-maker Maya Deren to act as her personal assistant. Deren toured with the Katherine Dunham Dance Company doing secretarial work for Dunham as the latter wrote up the findings from the anthropological fieldwork she had done in the mid-1930s in Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean. Dunham, an African American born in Chicago, sought to educate black and white Americans through writing about and choreographing with the rich dance culture which had developed as a consequence of the African diaspora. Deren, born in Kiev into a Jewish family who migrated to the United States in 1922, discovered ritual through her contact with Dunham and subsequently used it as a key device in her pioneering experimental film work. In a 1946 pamphlet Deren wrote about the importance of ritual in her films, two of which had been made with dancers who had been members of Dunham’s company; the following year she made her first visit to Haiti to study and film vaudun (voodoo) rituals that had been the subject of Miss Dunham’s research a decade earlier. #katherinedunham #mayaderen #divinehorsemen #voudoun #haiti
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