About Hanna Heiting’s films on Continuum and Emile Conrad
Hanna Heiting has made available to Watermark Arts three films that emerged from her friendship with Emilie Conrad, as well as from Hanna’s own experience of Continuum.
This remarkable triad begins with Em Moves, an intimate portrait of Emilie as ground-breaking teacher, mentor and mover. The Many Faces is a treasure of interviews with people whose lives Emilie touched. Alphabet follows the “Words and Waves” workshop process combining Continuum and creative writing.
Hanna was one of the few persons whom Emilie trusted to chronicle her life, and from these films it is easy to see why. As Rebecca Marks, co-creator of “Words and Waves”, puts it, “Hanna’s artistic decisions are those of an insider who lives the movement she is filming. Her visual compositions, her informed stillness, her directorial attention, all mirror and follow Emilie Conrad’s life-long exploration of movement in an unfolding call and response.”
From Hanna Heiting:
“Emilie Conrad’s understanding of culture, body and the cosmos has changed my own philosophical investigation, but as a filmmaker, I am fascinated with her unique gifts of communication. Emilie conveys information, both scientific and mystical, in all the myriad artistic means she commands. The fluttering of her articulate fingers, her passionate resonance with Nijinsky and her unpredictable bursts of humor transform every presentation and demonstration into a divine ancient and modern theatrical art.
“In classes as well as performances, her life story brought me back to myself, just as her sound frequencies affected mine before I did any sounding or movements of my own. The making of the film was not about documenting the precious fleeting moments, but rather a continuation of the movement that I felt inside me while watching her.
“My interests lie not in talking about Continuum but in finding ways to express as honestly and simply as I can what touched me most about it as a transformative and creative process.
“The film attained its form and structure when I made editorial decisions about the parts of Emilie’s powerful and triumphant story that I chose to focus on, but it felt complete only when I was watching it for the thousandth and one time and found myself moving and breathing with it.”
Read more about Hanna here.