Craneway Event
Jan 19, 2011
Screening as part of Seattle’s year of Merce, a celebration of the life’s work of choreographer Merce Cunningham, Craneway Event is a feature length portrait by one of Britain’s most accomplished visual artists, 1998 Turner Prize nominee Tacita Dean. Shot in the craneway of an abandoned Ford car factory overlooking San Francisco bay, Dean films the legendary choreographer rehearsing his company in the massive hanger-like space, recording the powerful beauty of the dancers’ hypnotic movement shrouded in sunlight. Dean's film practice embodies a romantic and insistent materialism, often-documenting forgotten moments and spaces teetering on the edge of disappearance.
“It is a perfect collaboration between two kinds of creator. But so strong is the affinity between them that one soon begins to see that they are intent upon the same thing: man's brief walk (or dance) in the sun.” —The Observer