All Hands on Deck: Dance, Metamorphosis, and Surreal Labor in Silent Cinema with Live Music featuring Dreamland Faces

Duration: 1 hour, 50 minutes with no intermission.

Performance will end at 8:20 pm and panel discussion will begin at 8:25 pm, ending at 8:50 pm.

Program curated by: Maggie Hennefeld

Music by Dreamland Faces: Karen Majewicz, Andy McCormick, Ryan Billig, Julie Johnson, Philip Potyondy, and Molly Raben

Madame a des envies [Madame's Cravings]

(Alice Guy-Blaché, France, 1906, 4:25 min)

Wenn die Filmkleberin gebummelt hat [When a Film Cutter Blunders]

(O.F. Mauer, Germany, 1925, 14 min)

Hände: Das Leben und die Liebe eines zärtlichen Geschlechts [Hands: The Life and Loves of the Gentler Sex]

(Stella Simon, Germany, 1929, 15 min)

Die große Liebe einer kleinen Tänzerin [The Great Love of a Little Dancer]

(Alfred Zeisler, Viktor Abel, Germany, 1924, 20 min)

Métamorphoses [Metamorphoses]

(Segundo de Chomon, France/Spain, 1912, 4:43 min)

Zora Neale Hurston's Fieldwork Footage [Excerpt]

(Zora Neale Hurston, U.S., 1928, 3 min)

The Dragonfly and the Ant

(Vladislaw Starewicz, Russia, 1913, 4:45 min)

Total runtime: Approx 110 min

Program Synopsis: 

Hands give us metaphors in familiar idioms for the urgency of collective labor, but they also appeared as surreal and uncanny images across the silent film archive. In this playful program, All Hands on Deck, laboring limbs fall in love, catch fire, metamorphose into toy animals, chop wood, cut films, smoke pipes (while pregnant!), hypnotize circus dancers, and build zoomorphic shelters from the storm. The seven films in this program include Stella Simon's rhythmic choreography of disembodied hands, Zora Neale Hurston's fieldwork footage shot in the 1920s, Alice Guy-Blaché's voracious comedy of maternity cravings, Ladislaw Starewicz's stop-motion fable starring dead bugs, Segundo de Chomón's phantasmagoric animation, a grotesque German puppet film, and a social satire about gendered labor and the disastrous results of editing film newsreels on a too-tight deadline!

Panel Discussion:

Immediately following the event, a discussion moderated by University of Minnesota Associate Professor and author Maggie Hennefeld will explore themes and images raised by the screening, from the history of gender, race, labor, and technology to the political aesthetics of popular moving images. She will be joined by labor and civil rights historian Professor William Jones (History, UMN) and film studies scholar Professor Mary Hennessy (University of Wisconsin, Madison) to place these films in their historical contexts and discuss their resonances for today.

William P. Jones is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches about race and class in the modern United States. He is author of two award-winning books, The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South, and The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights, and has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, and other publications.

Mary Hennessy is assistant professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines women’s multiple (often hidden) roles in the production of media to re-theorize relationships between gender, labor, and technology in modern Germany. Her current book project focuses on women typists, telephone operators, and film editors in the Weimar Republic.

*This event is sponsored by Archives on Screen, Twin Cities, The IAS Imagine Fund, and The Twin Cities Silent Film Project. 

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Maggie Hennefeld

Hennefeld is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is author of Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes (Columbia UP, 2018), co-editor of the journal Cultural Critique (UMN Press), and co-editor of two volumes: Unwatchable (Rutgers UP, 2019) and Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence (Duke UP, 2020). She is a co-curator of the 4-disc DVD/Blu-ray set, Cinema’s First Nasty Women (Kino Lorber, 2022). Her next book Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema is forthcoming from Columbia UP in early 2024.

Dreamland Faces

With clanks, creaks, thuds and dings, Ryan Billig has been adding off-rhythm percussive accompaniment to silent films with Dreamland Faces since the early 2000s. His influences include Noise, Javanese gamelan, West African drumming, Americana, Charismatic Christian Prayer Groups, Neo-pagan Ritual Community Theater, Rock and Roll, Jazz, and Balkan Brass. He began drumming at a young age and currently performs with Brass Messengers, Better Mistakes, and Brass Solidarity.

Based in Minneapolis, flutist and composer Julie Johnson brings her distinct sound and approach—rougher and more soulful than a typical classical sound, yet more pure than a typical jazz player's—to many multi-genre projects, including places where, she’s been told, the flute doesn’t belong. As a creator and a performer of new music, Johnson’s work walks the line between composition and songwriting, art music and popular music, between genres as seemingly different as classical and blues. A finalist for the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians and a winner of grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the American Composers Forum, the Lanesboro Arts Center, Springboard for the Arts, MacPhail Center for Music, MRAC, and a Banff Centre residency, she plays in many styles, working to bring both the flute and her audiences to music they haven’t been in contact with before. https://julieflute.net/

Karen Majewicz  is a composer and accordionist. Her musical background began with ethnomusicology, initially exploring accordion traditions, and evolved into graduate studies in composition. Drawing inspiration from classical paintings, silent film, nautical imagery, and the elegance of trees, her compositions evoke wonder, introspection, and romance.

Andy McCormick is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He writes music for movies, theater, with lyricists, and for friends. Andy enjoys collaborating and is usually willing to experiment. He is a proud musical saw player, ardent supporter of new music, and willing to sing dissonant intervals.

Philip Potyondy enjoys every opportunity to add lyric cornet and other sounds through twisted brass to Dreamland Faces compositions. He also plays trumpet with Brass Messengers, Bud’s Brass Band, Black Walnut Stomp, and the world’s only tree climbing brass band – The Arborators.

Molly Raben is an organist and experimental musician. With her foot in a corner of the cosmos, her practice is founded upon many years on the organ bench at churches. She collaborates with various local musicians and looks to the wind and the sky for her biggest inspiration.

About Archives on Screen, Twin Cities

Co-organized by Michelle Baroody and Hennefeld, Archives on Screen is dedicated to bringing rare, unseen archival films from around the globe to Twin Cities audiences. Animated by a love of cinema and commitment to making visible excluded images from the past, we work with international film archives and local film venues to explore and exhibit the richness of film history. Our programming spans the early history of silent cinema, studio feature films, experimental counter-cinemas, third cinema, amateur and non-theatrical films, short films, unfinished films, and contemporary independent filmmaking. Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour in the Twin Cities is our flagship event and annual program.

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Northrop Acknowledgments

The Northrop Advisory Board

The Northrop Advisory Board is committed to the growth and awareness of Northrop’s mission, vision, and the continued future of presenting world-class dance and music in our community. If you would like more information about the advisory board and its work, please contact Cynthia Betz, Director of Development, at 612-626-7554 or betzx011@umn.edu.

Thank you for supporting Northrop!

Making Legendary Performances Possible!

At Northrop, we believe in connecting great artists and ideas with our community and to a new generation of audiences. Your gift helps make memorable arts experiences possible by supporting extraordinary performances and new arts commissions, and helping ensure accessibility to everyone through live-streamed programming, outreach to diverse communities and subsidized student tickets. Our Friends are at the center of Northrop’s biggest ideas and brightest moments on stage.

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To learn more about supporting Northrop please contact:
Cynthia Betz
betzx011@umn.edu or 612-626-7554 

Friends of Northrop

A special thank you to our patrons whose generous support makes Northrop's transformative arts experiences possible. Make your mark on Northrop's future by becoming a Friend today, learn more by visiting northrop.umn.edu/support-northrop.

We gratefully acknowledge the support from Curtis L Carlson Family Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, project support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Givens Foundation, and event sponsors PNC Bank, and RBC Wealth Management.

This season’s listing is current as of 10/23/23

Please contact Trisha Taylor at taylort@umn.edu if you have any corrections or questions.

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Northrop's Aeolian-Skinner Organ

Thank you to the generous donors who continue to support programming for Northrop’s beloved Aeolian-Skinner Organ. It is because of you that this magnificent instrument’s voice will be enjoyed by many for years to come.

The Heritage Society Members

The Heritage Society honors and celebrates donors who have made estate and other planned gifts for Northrop at the University of Minnesota. 

• Nancy M Allen*
• Jerry L Artz
• John W Follows*
• Stephen Gordon and Pat Gavan-Gordon
• Peter S Lund
• Darlene M Sholtis

*Deceased

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This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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