Shirley Clarke

A major figure of the American avant garde Shirley Brimberg Clarke 19191997 was born into privilege as the daughter of PolishJewish immigrants who made their fortune in manufacturing Rebelling against a repressive bourgeois upbringing Clarke turned first to dance and later film and video to express her distinctive vision of the world Moving freely across genres and media throughout her career and often within a single work Clarkes cinema explores the porous boundaries between narrative and documentary filmmaking and film and other media such as painting dance performance and video Her 1960s features The Connection 1961 The Cool World 1963 and Portrait of Jason 1967 for which she is arguably best remembered address issues of urban alienation poverty addiction and racism focusing on lives lived at the margins of American society Fearless in both her personal and creative life Clarke produced a body of work that is as formally innovative as it is rooted in social protest Clarke initially trained as a dancer immersing herself in New Yorks vibrant postwar avantgarde dance scene Although her dance career never quite earned her the critical acclaim shed hoped for it had a lasting impact on her subsequent filmmaking and video work informing an interest in how movement is recorded formally while introducing her to key avantgarde dancers and choreographers Source httpsdenniscooperblogcomshirleyclarkeday2