Psychic Effects: A Delicate Balance, 2011

Psychic Effects: A Delicate Balance, 2011

Psychic Effects: A Delicate Balance from Dana Bell on Vimeo.

In a three channel video projection, scenes of hysteria from classic films form the backdrop to a performance video. Representations of the descent into madness by Gena Rowlands in John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under The Influence (1974), Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981), Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), and others are nearly removed from the films, leaving only the scenery as an index to the location of disintegration. Dancers act as translators for the original character's performances creating a dialog between the past and it's representations and the here-and-now. The dance is a series of repeated gestures referencing not only compulsive behaviors, but the ecstatic potential contained within them.

 

Meg Clixby, Kerry Davis, Talice Lee and Kristin Myers perform in the video, and not seen here but in the the live installation Helen Waters also performs. Brian Chase plays the drums.

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