[Frameworks] speaking of Maya Deren...

[Chuck Kleinhans]

On Feb 28, 2012, at 4:08 AM, David Tetzlaff wrote:



1941: The Kathleen Dunham Dance company goes to LA for several months to work in Hollywood, as Dunham's personal secretary, Elenora Deren goes along. There she meets Alexander Hackenscmid and they begin a romance.


It's worth noting that Dunham (an academically trained anthropologist) herself had been to Haiti (she eventually had a big house there which seems to have been a gathering place for artists and intellectuals) in the 30s) and studied Voudun.
from Wikipedia:

In 1935, Dunham was awarded travel fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald and Guggenheim foundations to conduct ethnographic study of the dance forms of the Caribbean, especially as manifested in the Vodun<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou> of Haiti, a path also followed by fellow anthropology student Zora Neale Hurston<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston>. She also received a grant to work with Professor Melville Herskovits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Herskovits> of Northwestern University<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwestern_University>, whose ideas of African retention would serve as a platform for her research in the Caribbean. ...

Early in 1936 she arrived at last in Haiti<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti>, where she remained for several months, the first of her many extended stays in that country throughout the rest of her life.
While in Haiti, Dunham investigated Vodun<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou> rituals and made extensive notes on her research, particularly on the dance movements of the participants. Years later, after extensive studies and initiations, she became a mambo (priestess) in the Vodun religion.

Deren was following in the fotsteps onf Dunham and Hurston when she went to Haiti.



Chuck Kleinhans

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