# Maya Deren [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Deren) (1917–1961) ## Description American filmmaker and theorist working in trance film and ritual, whose *Meshes of the Afternoon* (1943) and personal, hand-carried distribution and lecture circuit effectively founded the American avant-garde film movement's exhibition model. Her later ethnographic study of Haitian Vodou fed directly back into her theorization of ritual, ceremony, and possession as forms proper to cinema. ## Key Tags #trance-film #lyrical #theorist #institution-builder #feminist ## Essential Works - [Meshes of the Afternoon](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y2ZBnxJfkJQ-EVxbcY82tUmupWfg3-FQ/view?usp=drive_link) (1943) - co-directed with Alexander Hammid; foundational trance film of the American avant-garde - [An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Deren) (1946) - her key theoretical manifesto on vertical vs. horizontal film form and ritual - [Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Horsemen:_The_Living_Gods_of_Haiti) (1953/1985 film) - ethnographic footage of Haitian Vodou ceremony shot 1947-54, edited posthumously ## Details Born in Kyiv, emigrated to the US in 1922; worked as a dancer and journalist before turning to film with then-husband Alexander Hammid. A tireless advocate for independent film as an alternative to Hollywood, she toured *Meshes of the Afternoon* and lectured across the US, effectively inventing the personal-appearance, non-theatrical distribution model that shaped the American avant-garde. Traveled repeatedly to Haiti from 1947 on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study Vodou dance and possession ritual, an immersion that reoriented her later, unfinished work around questions of ritual, ceremony, and altered states. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Symbolism, Theology, and Occultism]] - her fieldwork on Haitian Vodou directly informed her theory of ritual and possession in cinema - [[Avant Garde Film]] - her independent touring and lecturing on *Meshes of the Afternoon* established the exhibition model for American avant-garde film ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators - Alexander Hammid - co-director and then-husband; collaborated on *Meshes of the Afternoon* (1943) and *At Land* (1944) ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Creative Film Foundation (founder, 1955) - established one of the first grant-giving bodies for independent American filmmakers ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Deren, Maya. *An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film*. Alicat Book Shop, 1946. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%