synopsis

Trio en Rose is a playful, intricate dance piece in which the dancers are seagulls, walking about on the pink granite rocks of Brittany. My focus is their skinny legs, knobby knees, and wide flat feet (plus their cheeky fearlessness). Music is by contemporary composer Lois V. Vierk, whose work is influenced by Japanese gagaku court music. Gulls, layered glissandi, and crosscut editing between multiple frames interplay in counterpoint, and with ironic, tongue-in-cheek, formality.

Perception is the common ground within this otherwise radical departure from my recent long-form essay films (Everywhere at Once, Deafening Silence, A Question of Sunlight) exploring human rights and narrative. Each new short work loops back to the cyclic and layered optical printing experiments with structure, including multiple projections I did in the early 80s. And as a variation of my first seagull piece, I look forward to exhibiting these two works as dual wall installations (sound or silent) in a gallery context. Any metaphoric or other suggestion of content within either piece lurks only in the imagination of the spectator …

notes

This film was made from SD video originally filmed with a consumer camera at Côtes-d’Armor, Brittany, France, recycled on multiple video tracks via Avid timeline. I began cutting this project about six years after first shoot, setting out to explore ways of editing video between multiple frames set within a single 16mm frame. (Echoes of the layered multiple-imagery film work I was developing on a JK Optical Printer in the 80s.) I pulled the seagull footage from my video diary guessing it would offer a sweet mix of humor, tenderness and, with luck, a touch of mystery.

About music: I had already used the first flute section of Lois V Vierk’s astonishing piece IO in A Question of Sunlight and was looking for a vehicle to use the entire piece. … And so IO runs first note to last, without a fade or a cut, throughout this work.