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  • Controlling the World Within the Frame:Julie Dash and Ayoka Chenzira Reflect on New York and Filmmaking
  • Michele Prettyman (bio)

In October of 2018, I had the pleasure of speaking with filmmakers Julie Dash and Ayoka Chenzira, both professors at Spelman College, to get their takes on the black filmmakers and artists working in and around New York in the late 1960s and 1970s in an era we are calling the "New York Scene." Dash and Chenzira, born just a year apart, have each had extraordinary careers in filmmaking and media arts and both spent their early years as students in New York. Dash gained notoriety with experimental short films like Four Women (1975), Diary of an African Nun (1977), and Illusions (1982) and later with the iconic Daughters of the Dust (1991) and a host of other film and TV productions. As a young woman and a native New Yorker, she took film and photography classes at the Studio Museum of Harlem and would later go on to receive a BA from City College in 1974.

Chenzira, a Philadelphia native and dancer, pursued film and photography at NYU. Her earliest works include Syvilla: They Dance to Her Drum (1979); a groundbreaking animated piece entitled Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People (1985); Zajota & the Boogie Spirit (1989), which was the first animated film to combine film, frame-by-frame video, and computer animation; and a 35mm feature, Alma's Rainbow (1994). The women recall New York of this time as a space dominated by documentary filmmaking, which was cheaper and easier to produce, and which captured the attention of young black artists, writers, students, activists, and journalists who believed it could best address the sociopolitical anxieties of black life. While both women worked in documentary filmmaking, each followed her own impulse to tell stories, often experimental ones, about women, and each began using filmmaking to cultivate her own artistic and cinematic potential. As the Black Arts Movement continued to evolve and theater and the visual [End Page 69] arts remained pivotal spheres of influence, these women recall the nascent days of public documentary and narrative film work, crossing paths with the likes of Madeline Anderson, Gil Noble, Kathleen Collins, Bill Gunn, St. Clair Bourne, Roy Campanella II., Pearl Bowser, Kathe Sandler, Camille Billops, Fronza Woods, and many others.

Michele Prettyman:

So, thank you both so much for agreeing to do this. I know you're swamped with many things, so we really appreciate your time. In this Black Camera Close-Up my collaborator, Nick Forster, and I have been working to put together the archival puzzle of this network of black filmmakers and artists which we are calling the New York Scene. Since I was a graduate student I've been trying to contextualize the significance of Kathy Collins, and Nick has been doing a lot of research on Bill Gunn, and in our conversations we realized that they were part of this large, interconnected network of people: some who might have been students, others were older professionals, but they were all doing interesting things. And so with this Close-Up we're really just beginning a conversation because a lot of the research that is really ongoing. So with this in mind, I just wanted to get the perspectives of both of you to help us understand what you were doing and what this world was like. So that's kind of the backstory.

Julie Dash:

Okay, well, I could tell you I met Kathy Collins in the early 1970s. I think it was either 1971 or '72 and I was doing work study with Chambra Productions and with St. Clair Bourne in the Film [Center] Building on Ninth Avenue. And it was a very vibrant, exciting period of time where a lot of documentary filmmaking was being done. They were working on Black Journal as well as Soul (and Ayo can jump in). And Kathy had just had a baby and she was editing Let the Church Say Amen! [1974] for St. Clair Bourne and she was very generous with her skills and crafts. That's what I remember. I would go into the editing room with...

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