Maya Deren- the "avant-garde"

I have to say, the beginning of the video is really long. Before I started to watch the amazing video with soundtrack, the silence lasted about 1 minute and 45 seconds.

“The very eye of the night” was produced in collaboration with Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, in 1958 by Maya Deren, who was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. It seems that the video mainly tells a story about the dance in the starry night. However, through the video can I hardly found the narrative clues of the story except the music. The video is more like a music video to me, which is linked by different dancing video clips. The dancers dance to the wind and the melody makes the night even lonely.

Ballet dancers’ movements and postures randomly flash according to the music beat, under the shining stars. I can’t tell what Maya Daren wants to express, but what I feel is the sense of beauty. The midnight made me intoxicated. The video technology Maya Daren used in 1958 was sort like “Dissolve”, which is generally applied today in video techniques. Nevertheless, I guess the dissolve effect at that age was still an innovation. Maybe that’s why Maya Daren is a so-called “avant-garde” in her age.

Sometimes nothing is everything. A video isn’t necessarily to be a complete story with all the elements such as “when, where, who and what”. The Maya-Deren-Video attracts audience by its unique tone and taste other than a good narrative. There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes. Audience from different background will have different understanding of the film. People can be moved by a single frame if only the moment touches the deep place of his heart. We cannot judge whether an “avant-garde” is good or not simply. All we need is managing to understand.

Besides the video, the sound got my attention as well. The music in the video is also an “avant-garde” in my opinion. It was composed by a Japanese composer- Teiji Itō, who is best known for his scores for the “avant-garde” films by Maya Deren. The melody starts with a traditional Japanese bell tone under a simple rhythm structure. Then it turns to clarinet and flute and the tempo increases. After that there comes out the melody of mustel I guess. The whole melody of the soundtrack creates a quirky and creepy atmosphere, in sharp contrast to the graceful ballet. There is another video by Maya Deren and the composer is Teiji Itō too. The soundtrack is really ”oriental”. The video is below:

Nowadays there are still a lot of “avant-garde” pioneers pursuing their art achievement. Maya Deren is an example for the youths who have unique thoughts to express themselves. I always believe that if you want the audiences to understand your work, you should have emotion touch on your own work.

Andy Shuang Li