Five Easy Pieces: Early Films

Five Easy Pieces: A compilation of five early short films made between 1966 to 1969.

Hand Movie (1966, 5:00, b&w, silent, 8mm to video)
Close-up of a hand, the fingers of which enact a sensuous dance.
Camerawork by William Davis.

Volleyball (Foot Film) (1967, 10:00 b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
A volleyball is rolled into the frame and comes to rest. Two legs in sneakers, seen from the knees down, enter the frame and stand beside it. Cut to new angle, same characters and actions.
Camerawork by Bud Wirtschafter.

Rhode Island Red (1968, 10:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
Ten minutes in an enormous chicken coop.
Camerawork by Roy Levin.

Trio Film (1968, 13:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
Two nudes, a man and a woman, interact with each other and a large balloon in a white living room. Performed by Steve Paxton and Becky Arnold.
Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

Line (1969, 10:00, b&w, silent, 16mm to video)
A blond woman (Susan Marshall) in white pants and shirt interacts with a moving round object and the camera.
Camerawork by Phill Niblock.

"Beyond the resonance of the title, however, the 21st century dance footage (itself containing 40-year-old instances of my 20th century choreography) can be read multifariously—and paradoxically—as both the beneficiary of a cultural and economic elite and as an extension of an avant-garde tradition that revels in attacking that elite and its illusions of order and permanency. Or, finally, each dance image can be taken simply as a graphic or mimetic correlation with its simultaneous text. "Some may say the avant-garde has long been over. Be that as it may, the idea of it continues to inspire and motivate many of us with its inducement—in the words of playwright/director Richard Foreman—to “resist the present.'"
—Yvonne Rainer