Now from Larry Gottheim: Chants and Dances for Hand

Posted December 28th, 2017 in New Acquisitions, New DVDs, News / Events

Chants and Dances for Hand, Larry Gottheim’s exploration of Haitian Vodou, is now available to rent or purchase on DVD, or as a digital file for exhibition.

Chants and Dances for Hand (2016 | 40 minutes | COLOR | SOUND)

The material was shot in Haiti about 25 years ago. Some sections are formed out of material from Vodou ceremonies. I participated in some of them. It is bound into a tightly coiled formal structure that echoes some of the pattern of ceremonies. Other material is shaped into interludes. In the turning center is a section with material recorded during an uprising. It is in part a meditation on death. Indeed the whole project is a meditation on death. Also birth. Also, as in most of my films, memory. Not only the memory of what is rapidly passing by in the flow of sounds and images, but the deeper memory such as the ceremonies themselves evoke. This will be different for each viewer, each viewing. Also the ceremonial nature of cinema, movies and video. The only sounds are the musical sounds that accompany the images, the only images are those that accompany the musical sounds or silences.