In Dialogue: Manon de Boer and Jayne Parker

A new instalment in our on-going series Films in Dialogue

In their work, Manon de Boer and Jayne Parker often explore the relationship between music and film. They each acknowledge their interest in performance, in observing a privileged moment of concentration: a body in action.

“I find it fascinating to watch the face of someone who is reading, playing music or thinking, because these are often moments when people seem to forget their ‘social face’, being so concentrated on an interior activity; moments in which a mental space is reflected on the face – this surface between inside and outside.” (MdB).

This screening, which will be followed by a conversation between Parker and de Boer, will present their work in dialogue for the first time. It focuses on ‘performance’ films, particularly those made with their regular collaborators Georges Van Dam (de Boer), and Anton Lukoszevieze and Katharina Wolpe (Parker).
The programme begins with Thinking Twice (1997) and Presto, Perfect Sound (2006), works that for each artist represent a turning point in their thinking about music and performance in film. In Thinking Twice, Katharina Wolpe plays three pieces for piano by her father Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), the first of which is “Piece of Embittered Music”. In her choice of black-and-white close-ups of the pianist’s hands and face – as well as of the piano keys in motion –, Parker  “attempts to reflect the rigour of the music” (JP). Manon de Boer’s Presto, Perfect Sound depicts Van Dam performing the fourth movement of a Bartók violin sonata. Editing together five different takes of the performance, de Boer structured the film so that it has a seamless soundtrack whilst leaving the image track disjointed, and in doing so it inverts the traditional dominance of image over sound in film. The concluding work Sequenza is an experiment co-realised by Van Dam and de Boer.

Programme

Presto, Perfect Sound (Manon de Boer, 2006, 6min)
Thinking Twice (Jayne Parker, 1997, 10 min)
Dissonant (Manon de Boer, 2010, 11 min)
59 1/2 seconds for a string player (versions 1-3) (Jayne Parker, 2000, 3 min)
Projection 1 (versions 1&2)(Jayne Parker, 2000, 7 min)
Foxfire Eins (Jayne Parker, 2000, 10 min)
Sequenza (Manon de Boer & Georges Van Dam, 2014, 14 min)
With thanks to Andrea Lissoni (Tate Modern) and Marie Logie (Auguste Orts).

Manon de Boer will be at Tate Modern on 6 October 2015 to present a screening of her films Resonating Surfaces (2005), Attica (2008) and one, two, many (2012).