Tuesday, July 13, 11am-12:15PM PDT
In honor of what would be Anna Halprin’s 101st birthday there will be a special ONLINE memorial screening of Returning Home by Andrew Abrahams, filmmaker and longtime collaborator of Anna’s. Grand Jury Award winner at the Dance on Camera Film Festival, Returning Home is a testament to the power of connecting the human and earth bodies, as an 80-something-year-old Halprin dances along thresholds of nature and finds lessons in aging, loss, and liberation.
To attend this event, you may access it here.
About Returning Home
Moving with the Earth Body
The body is our home, as is the larger body of the earth. When these two bodies move in harmony, a dance unfolds. Both are made whole. RETURNING HOME is a breathtaking and groundbreaking dance documentary in which 80-something Anna Halprin, pioneer of postmodern dance, uses movement as a means of connecting the individual to nature, and art to real life. In collaboration with performance artist Eeo Stubblefield, Halprin moves along thresholds of earth, wind, water and fire, discovering lessons in loss and liberation. Whether surveying the charred remains of her home, or her scars from cancer and aging, Halprin finds beauty and meaning even in the destructive forces of nature. A testament to the importance of honoring the human and earth bodies, this unforgettable film takes us on a mythic and very personal journey home. (2003, 45 min.)
Founder and president of Open Eye Pictures, Andrew (aka Andy Abrahams Wilson) is an Oscar-shortlisted and Emmy-nominated producer/director of creative non-fiction films. He also works as a cinematographer and photographer. After enrolling in the Medill School of Journalism, Andrew received a BA in cultural anthropology from Northwestern University and an MA in visual anthropology from the University of Southern California where he also studied at the School of Cinema. Andrew’s approach emphasizes visual imagery as a way to bridge disparate parts, peoples and ideas. While his work takes on controversial themes, he uses the filmmaking process as an opportunity to encourage compassion and action. Andrew’s previous films have garnered numerous awards and been shown on HBO, PBS, CBC, the Showtime Networks, and in theaters and film festivals worldwide. A recipient of a Pew Charitable Trust Fellowship in Dance/Media, he is the two-time Grand Prize recipient at the Dance on Camera Film Festival. Andrew is a past budget director of the film distribution cooperative New Day Films, board director of the Jewish Film Institute, and member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He has been recognized by the Northern California Marin Arts Council as Outstanding Artist, and by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences with honors for Outstanding Documentary Achievement. He has received numerous foundation grants, including the California Council for the Humanities, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Laurance Rockefeller Foundation, the Columbia Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation and the Educational Foundation of America. In addition to making films, Andrew teaches unique film and photo workshops, including Intimacy & Exposure: The Alchemy of Photography at the renowned Esalen Institute.
If you’d like to leave a message in memory of Anna you can do so on the Dedications page of the website Tamalpa created in her honor.
In 2015, for her 95th birthday, Anna wrote: “One of my strongest wishes is for the success of the Tamalpa ArtCorps, a program that carries out a vision that has always been central to my work: dance as a healing and peace-making force for people all over the world.” Donations in honor of the memory of Anna can be made to Tamalpa Institute’s ArtCorps HERE.
