SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010 at 8:00 PM

(Jordan Belson, 1959-2005, USA, 16mm/digiBeta, 70min.)

Program presented in association with the Center for Visual Music.

Introduction by Cindy Keefer, Director of Center for Visual Music

Still from "Allures" (1961) by Jordan Belson. (Image © Jordan Belson, courtesy of Center for Visual Music.)

Films Sacred and Profane is a very special program featuring rarely-seen works, including Allures (1961), Samadhi (1967), a newly-preserved print of Chakra (1972), Light (1973), Music of the Spheres (1977/2002), and Epilogue (2005).

Filmmaker and artist Jordan Belson has created some of the most moving, ethereal works of visual music. After seeing the films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren and Hans Richter, he was inspired to make what he called “cinematic paintings.”

In the late-1950s, Belson collaborated with composer Henry Jacobs on the historic Vortex Concerts, which combined the latest electronic music with moving visual abstractions projected on the dome of Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco. Belson then began making what would become an astonishing body of over 30 abstract films that are, as curator Cindy Keefer has described, “richly woven with cosmological imagery, exploring consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself.” He also produced special effects for the film The Right Stuff (1983), and continues making fine art and films today.

Program:

Part 1

Caravan, 1952, color, sound, 16mm, 4 min.  Very rarely screened.

Allures, 1961, color, sound, 16mm, 7:45 mins. Sound: Henry Jacobs, and Jordan Belson.

Samadhi, 1967, color, sound, orig. 16mm > Digibeta , 6 mins. Sound: Jordan Belson.

Part 2

Chakra, 1972, color, sound, 16mm, 6 min. Sound: Jordan Belson. New preserved print.

Light, 1973, color, sound, 16mm, 6 min.  Sound: Jordan Belson.

Music of the Spheres, 1977/abridged version 2002, color, sound, originally 16mm > Digibeta, 7 min.  Music: Iasos.  The original longer version was revised by Belson in 2002.

Epilogue (2005), color, sound, Digibeta, 12 min. Music: Rachmaninoff.