2019 OCTOBER / NOVEMBER / DECEMBER Program Guide TABLE OF CONTENTS DREAM DANCE: THE ART OF ED EMSHWILLER 3-6 SPECIAL OUTDOOR SCREENING 7 LOUIS BLUVER’S ARTHOUSE REVISITED 7 SAVESAVE THETHE DATEDATE FAMILY MATINEES 9 IN COLLABORATION 11-13 SUPPORT LIGHTBOX FILM CENTER 14 JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL CALENDAR 15-16 EVENT AS THE LIGHTBOX COMMUNITY CELEBRATES LIGHTBOX INFORMATION 17-18 40 YEARS OF FILM AT INTERNATIONAL HOUSE MORE DETAILS TO COME! 1 2 www.lightboxfilmcenter.org • 215.387.5125 Saturday, October 19 at 8pm FREEDOM MARCH PROGRAM TWO Ed Emshwiller, US, 1963, 16mm, 9 min., color INTRODUCED BY HERB Rarely screened short film of the historic SHELLENBERGER THE ART OF 1963 march on Washington D.C. IMAGE, FLESH AND Preserved by Anthology Film Archives VOICE Special thanks to NYU’s Orphans Film Ed Emshwiller, US, 1969, 16mm, 77 min., b/w Symposium This is a film about Images (visual and psychological), Flesh (sensuality), Friday, October 25 at 7pm Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emshwiller is the first major monographic exhibition and Voice (as a revelation and as PROGRAM FOUR of the artist’s groundbreaking work in film, video, and visual art. With an immensely a textural element in the film). The diverse body of creative work, Ed Emshwiller (1925-90) is perhaps one of the HALLELUJAH THE HILLS pictures range back and forth from the Adolfas Mekas, US, 1963, 35mm, 80 min., b/w most significant yet under-recognized artists of the latter half of the 20th completely spontaneous to very formal century. Emshwiller’s career spanned abstract expressionist painting, commercial choreography. It is a non-story-telling A farcical, experimental slapstick illustration, film, video and computer art, and collaborations with dancers, feature film, a structured interplay of comedy set in the woods of Vermont. choreographers, and composers. Dream Dance includes the preservation of two sound, image, and sensual tensions. -EE Jack and Leo both pine for the love of of Emshwiller’s earliest films, Dance Chromatic (1959) and Lifelines (1960), which Vera, but their sophomoric antics get the Preceded by: will be screened at Lightbox along with 19 of his other films—some of which have best of them as does the brutish Gideon, never been publicly presented in Philadelphia—as well as notable films by other GEORGE DUMPSON’S played by Ed Emshwiller, who ultimately filmmakers for which he served as cinematographer. A concurrent exhibition at the PLACE wins over Vera. Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery highlights Emshwiller’s visual and fine art background, Ed Emshwiller, US, 1964, 16mm, 8 min., color Courtesy of Pola Chapelle including video works, early paintings, notes, sketches, ephemera, and many George Dumpson was a scavenger. Preceded by: early science fiction cover paintings. Dream Dance is a full scale investigation of He put together what things he could the artist’s legacy, presenting his multidisciplinary oeuvre to a new generation of in such a way as to satisfy some inner THE EXISTENTIALIST Leon Prochnik, US, 1964, 16mm, 8 min., b/w audiences. need, just as I had to make this picture A walk through the city where Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emshwiller is curated by Jesse Pires, Chief Curator. of him and his place. -EE Preserved by Anthology Film Archives everything is not as it seems. Saturday, October 19 at 6pm LIFELINES with support from the National Film PROGRAM ONE Ed Emshwiller, US, 1960, 16mm, 7 min., color Preservation Foundation Friday, November 1 at 7pm PROGRAM FIVE FREE ADMISSION Animated line drawings engage in a Thursday, October 24 at 7pm FOLLOWED BY A CONVERSATION INCLUDES A CONVERSATION playful pas de deux with a nude model. BETWEEN SAMUEL R. DELANY AND BETWEEN LIGHTBOX CHIEF Preserved through a collaboration PROGRAM THREE ED HALTER CURATOR JESSE PIRES, PETER between Anthology Film Archives and FREE ADMISSION “STONEY” EMSHWILLER, AND SUSAN Lightbox Film Center THE QUIET TAKEOVER EMSHWILLER, FOLLOWED BY A POST- Jack Willis, Canada, 1963, 60 min., b/w RELATIVITY Ed Emshwiller, US, 1966, 16mm, 38 min., color SCREENING OPENING RECEPTION THANATOPSIS Produced for CBC Television, Jack Willis’ Ed Emshwiller, US, 1962, 16mm, 6 min., b/w The Quiet Takeover examines the rise Emshwiller’s poetic meditation on time, of computers in the workplace. During space, and the natural world could be DANCE CHROMATIC Time exposures created images of Ed Emshwiller, US, 1959, 16mm, 7 min., color the shoot, Emshwiller collected footage viewed as an extension of his practice as a flickering, vibrating woman who is that would ultimately be used in his film a science fiction illustrator, yetRelativity Images of a young woman are double juxtaposed with an immobile man. -EE Relativity. goes well beyond the realm of fiction in exposed in camera with animated Preserved by Anthology Film Archives abstract paintings. -EE Preceded by: its quest to understand the universe and Preserved through a collaboration our place in it. CAROL THE STREETS OF Preserved by Anthology Film Archives between Anthology Film Archives and Ed Emshwiller, US, 1970, 16mm, 5 min., color Lightbox Film Center GREENWOOD with support from the National Film Jack Willis, US, 1963, 16mm, 20 min., b/w This elegant film portrait of Carol Preservation Foundation TRANSFORMATION Emshwiller uses images from a forest A short documentary about the efforts Ed Emshwiller, US, 1959, 16mm, 5 min., color – trees shimmering in the sunlight – to of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating PROJECT APOLLO frame its subject. Committee (SNCC) to register voters in Ed Emshwiller, US, 1968, 30 min., color The pointillist score accompanies Preserved by Anthology Film Archives rural Mississippi. The film is a remarkable An unconventional documentary on changing line, form, and color to create document of the civil rights era in the the Apollo space program, Project an animated film painting, achieved southern U.S. Apollo was made for the United States through the exploration of spontaneous Print courtesy of Washington University Information Agency in 1968. abstractions. -EE in St. Louis Preserved by Anthology Film Archives Special thanks to Dan Streible 3 4 www.lightboxfilmcenter.org • 215.387.5125 Thursday, November 21 at 7pm Preceded by: PROGRAM TEN CHOICE CHANCE INTRODUCED BY TERRY FOX WOMAN DANCE CHRYSALIS Ed Emshwiller, US, 1971, 44 min., color THE ART OF Ed Emshwiller, US, 1973, 16mm, 22 min., color An ambitious attempt to synthesize Dancers coming from a black void the experiences of several women move in slow, normal, and rapid motion. as a way of understanding the world They pass through a series of violent, from a woman’s perspective. A highly humorous, and strange states, emerging stylized, experimental documentary Thursday, November 14 at 7pm Preceded by: in a form of rebirth. -EE that showcases Emshwiller’s unique PROGRAM SIX WOE OH HO NO approach to storytelling. TIME OF THE HEATHEN Ed Emshwiller, US 1972, 13 min., color FILM WITH THREE Peter Kass, US, 1961, 16mm, 75 min., b/w Collaboratively produced at Wantagh DANCERS Thursday, December 5 at 7pm Rarely screened since its debut, Time High School in New York, Woe Oh Ho Ed Emshwiller, US, 1970, 16mm, 20 min., color PROGRAM TWELVE of the Heathen is an atmospheric No ventures into the unconscious mind Three dancers are seen in different FREE ADMISSION examination of cold war trauma and of the average student. ways. They reveal themselves, their INCLUDES A CONVERSATION WITH racial tensions in America. In addition to aesthetics, their method of working TED GORDON, JOAN LABARBARA, his role as cinematographer, Emshwiller Saturday, November 16 at 5pm together. -EE MARIA MURPHY, AND MORTON constructed the disturbing color PROGRAM EIGHT SUBOTNICK, FOLLOWED BY A POST- SCREENING CLOSING RECEPTION sequence at the end of the film. PILOBOLUS AND JOAN FUSION Courtesy of Sam Kass Ed Emshwiller, US, 1973, 58 min., color Ed Emshwiller, US, 1967, 16mm, 16 min., color HUNGERS Preceded by: Based on Metamorphosed by Carol A cine-dance film sponsored by Springs Ed Emshwiller, US, 1988, 29 min., color SCRAMBLES Emshwiller (a reversal of Kafka’s The Mills to promote a new line of towels Ed Emshwiller, US, 1963, 16mm, 15 min., b/w Metamorphosis). A cockroach wakes up designed by Pucci. Dancers throw, move A collaboration with composer as a four-man-being, falls in love with through, dance with, and are draped in a Morton Subotnick, the sprawling, A document of a motorcycle race in all multidisciplinary theatrical production its fast-paced, explosive glory. a girl, and proceeds to encounter the variety of designer towels. -EE human world. -EE Courtesy of the Jerome Robbins Dance Hungers featured film, video, and Preceded by: computer generated images along with Preceded by: Division, The New York Public Library FILM MAGAZINE OF THE for the Performing Arts dance, electronic and acoustic music, SCAPE-MATES and voice. Emshwiller described the ARTS Ed Emshwiller, US, 1972, 16mm, 28 min., color Jonas Mekas, US, 1963, 16mm, 20 min., color work as “expressing hungers (i.e. for Scape-mates is a videotape which TOTEM food, security, acceptance, the child With camera assistance from Ed Ed Emshwiller, US, 1963, 16mm, 16 min., color combines dancers with an environment for mother).” This broadcast version, Emshwiller, Jonas Mekas captures New made by computer animation. All A filmic interpretation by Emshwiller of created for PBS, is a glimpse of the full York’s vibrant arts scene. elements go through rapid and the ballet Totem by Alwin Nikolais. A performance from the stage to behind radical transformations, ending in an cine-dance in which the choreography the scenes. Friday, November 15 at 7pm architectural maze before disintegration. often comes as much from camera PROGRAM SEVEN -EE movement and film editing as from the REPORT dancers. -EE A concurrent gallery exhibition is on Jean-Bernard Bucky and Robert Peyton, US, view from October 18 – December 7 1970, 16mm, 60 min., b/w Saturday, November 16 at 8pm PROGRAM NINE Wednesday, December 4 at 7pm at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of the One of several film projects related to PROGRAM ELEVEN University of the Arts.