Remembering Shirley Clarke - actress

Shirley Clarke was my mentor. I learned more from her than anyone other I ever knew - for the most part about how to be a mentor, by what means to energize people, how to push them to do profitable work, how not to give up when the technology was failing, the family lethargic or the situation impossible. Shirley pushed things and tribe to the edge. She not ever gave up. Alzheimer's claimed her about 10 years ago, on the other hand she held on, tenderly nurs through two of her beloved disciples, Piper and David Cort, who bathed her and rapiered her in and smoothed her forehead. Her daughter Wendy and many of her colleagues were with her during her last days in a Boston hospital. She died September 23 1997 in a sweet repose surrounded by Felix the Cat and Betty Boop toys of her youth held tight for all these years.

Shirley was somewhere between Betty Boop and Felix the Cat herself, with a bit of Charlie Chaplin's tramp thrown in. She oftentimes wore a bowler hat and tight smart little suits, looking like something on the outside of a 1930s chorus line. All she straited were spats to complete the style of dress She had style. A small woman with the material part of a dancer, she had piercing beady black organ of sights like a little mouse. She was witty and bright, and endlessly energetic.

Shirley started as a dancer. Her first films were dance films: Dance in the day-star (1953) and In Paris Parks (1954) a lyrical direct the eye at gesture and movement in a public landscape. I saw this early work and Brussels "Loops" (1958) a piece made of little noose movies that she did for the Brussels World Fair, at the huntsman Art Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1959 It changed my life. Seeing her name upon the credits and the gladness and energy of the images made me realize that women could and should make films. I decided to make experiment of to study film in guild but Antioch did not tender film classes at the time, for a like reason I dropped out.

Her work in the early '60 The Connection (1960) and The a little cold World (1963) are landmarks of the American fresh Wave movement. The Cool World is a of recent origin York version of Italian neo-realism, each bit as powerful and poignant. It remains (with Robert Frank's 1959 twitch My Daisy) the best expression of marginal life in that era. Her film Portrait of Jason (1967) was single of the first with a gay protagonist in an unclose and sympathetic (and completely unromantic) manner. Shirley and Viva shared the defence as "talent" in Agnes Varda's Lion's regard with affection (1969), my favorite Varda film. in some way Shirley (and Viva) added a of recent origin York edge to Varda, who could wax cloyingly sentimental.

In the early '70 I somehow or other found my way up to Shirley's workshop space in the penthouse of the Chelsea tavern She lived and worked there making live and taped video performance, installation and documentation with a collaborating cluster of artists. I was successful to have been a part of that work. We formed a troupe those of us who worked with Shirley. She called us the TeePee Video Space Troupe The idea was to experiment with performance that integrated video and other technologies. It was in the days before video cassettes and each tape had to be hand threaded into the portapak beautifys Not that it was really about recording by se, because most of what we did was not ever on tape; the tape was solitary one of the elements of the constructions, the happenings, the circumstances It was electronic performance in an interactive fashion The troupe included myself, Andy Gurian, Shirley's daughter Wendy, Bruce Ferguson, Vicki Polon David Cort, move with a jerk Harris, Parry Teasdale, Shalom Gorewitz, Susan Milano, Shridir Bapat and others. There were regular drop-ins like Agnes Varda, Shigeko Kaboda, Beryl Korot, Nam June Paik, Skip Blumberg, Barbara Haspiel, Steina and ligneous Vasulka, Jori Schwartzman and neighbors at the Chelsea of the like kind as Carl Lee, Viva (toting single of her kids), photographer Peter Simon, Doris Chase, Andre Vosnevshenski, George Kleinsinger, Virgil Thompson Harry Smith and Arthur C Clarke (no relation). At any given time there also always appeared to be one or sum of two units Japanese dancers around. Sometimes level Andy Warhol climbed the flight of stairs after the last elevator stop, looking for Viva. Louis Malle came by the agency of as did Susan Sontag, Joris Ivens, Peter burns Jean Rouche and Shelly Winters. The Chelsea had a certain cachet for visitors from Europe Hollywood and Japan, and Shirley was queen of the Chelsea.

Around Shirley swirled miles of video cables, cameras, monitors and telephone She was wired. Shirley had a of recent origin project every night. We were extremityed to help make it happen. It was sometimes frustrating, repeatedly exhausting, but it was hard not to trot above there, because you never knew what you might miss if you stayed away.

At more [i]or[/i] less point Arthur Clarke got grasp of a laser. He unwrapped a lengthy rectangular box with a fat cable, borrowed from a Columbia lab through a fan of his 2001 Space Odyssey This was years before those r needle of light sparkled upon every cashier's counter. The laser was exotic and thrilling and Shirley and Arthur giggled like kids phoning in bogus pizza orders as they plugg it in and aimed the beam not upon the edge of the cover Passers-by on 23rd St. stooped to pick up the tiny r jewel. the pair Clarkes roared with laughter as they made it leap over five feet out of reach. When we tried using the laser in our performances, the intense light etched intricate patterns upon several of our cameras.