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Moving pictures: Dance piece explores film that sparked a revolution

Moving pictures: Dance piece explores film that sparked a revolution
Da Ping Luo

Can a film change the world?

That is the question explored in a new performance piece opening in Clinton Hill on Sept. 3. “They Are Gone But Here Must I Remain” uses a blend of dance, film, and spoken monologues to tease out the relationship between images and political action, says the show’s director.

“I think of it as a performance lecture,” said Kathryn Hamilton, who created the show with theater ensemble Sister Sylvester. “It starts as a lecture and then splinters into different performance pieces, circling around back to the lecture form, and then splintering again repeatedly over the course of the piece.”

The show uses clips from the 1969 documentary “The Fall,” about students at Columbia University who took over several buildings as part of a protest against the Vietnam War. The film inspired similar student protests in Greece in 1974, says Hamilton, which eventually led to the removal of the country’s military dictatorship. Performers on stage re-enact scenes from the film, and use movement and dance to convey the action inspired by it.

“For me, the center of the piece is the relationship between image and action, tied back to the story of ‘The Fall,’ ” Hamilton said. “I find it a really fascinating thing to try and explore, using this story as a starting point, the connection between image and action, how each can cause the other, and what the relationship is between the two.”

Hamilton sees parallels between the action prompted by “The Fall” and modern protests sparked by camera-phone footage of policy activity.

“I live in Istanbul, Turkey, and in New York,” she said, “and have been away for the past six months, but just seeing the news about what’s been going on in America, and especially the role that cameras play in documenting, or challenging certain notions of truth, I think it’s incredibly pertinent to what we’re talking about in the piece. And the footage that Whitehead shot inside Columbia looks like it could be footage shot on a camera phone.”

“They Are Gone But Here Must I Remain” at Jack [505 1/2 Waverly Ave. between Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue in Clinton Hill, (800) 838–3006, www.jackny.org]. Sept. 3–5, 10–12, and 17–19 at 8 pm. $20.