Description
This 1973 black-and-white film is a rediscovered classic. Performing with a "cast" that includes Gordon Matta-Clark, Jonas choreographs a theater of space, movement, and sound, with the urban landscape of New York in a featured role. Jonas creates a highly original if enigmatic theatrical language of gesture and sound, as she and her performers play with emblematic props, unexpected rhythms of space and scale, references to painting, and audio delays. At once delightfully improvisational and precisely choreographed, Songdelay resonates with themes and strategies that recur throughout Jonas' performance work.
Camera: Robert Fiore. Editors: Robert Fiore, Joan Jonas. Sound Technician: Kurt Munkacsi. Performers: Ariel Bach, Marion Cajuri, James Cobb, Carol Gooden, Randy Hardy, Michael Harvey, Glenda Hydler, Joan Jonas, EP Kotkas, Gordon Matta-Clark, Michael Oliver, Steve Paxton, Penelope, James Reineking, Robin Winters.
Preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.
Exhibition & Distribution Conditions
This is a video transfer of a work initially shot on film. This is best shown as a projection, to reflect the original medium.
Projection Installation Checklist & Guidelines
