maya deren was born in kiev in 1917.
born eleanora derenkowsky, she entered the world at a time of tremendous historical significance, for at the tender age of six months she was living in a world that was at war and in a city that was at the centre of ukrainian independence. indeed kiev became the capital of the breakaway state the ukraine in that, her first autumn.
perhaps the ambience of revolution and change entered her young spirit, for throughout her life, deren was forever challenging the status quo and in her own right fomenting a series of creative revolutions. as an act of personal revolution, changing your name entirely has to rank fairly high up and in 1943, she adopted the name maya deren.
at the time she did this her social circle included such luminaries as andré breton, marcel duchamp, john cage, and anaïs nin.
her first film was entitled meshes of the afternoon. a dreamlike film released in 1943, it was in fact co-created by deren and her then husband alexander hammid.
highly symbolic in the manner that the surrealist films by bunuel and dali were, i’m drawn to wonder if the rationale behind the surrealist game of exquisite corpse was applied here. that being, the juxtaposition of disparate images through an agreed upon formula resulting in access to a deeper mapping of the subconscious mind.whatever the thinking this is not light entertainment!
the soundtrack to this film was later superimposed by deren’s third husband teiji ito.
part one of maya deren and alexander hammid’s meshes of the afternoon . . .
part two of maya deren and alexander hammid’s meshes of the afternoon . . .
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