Zen and the art of poetic filmmaking

Zen and the art of poetic filmmaking

While some ex-pop song writers go down in a blaze of glory (aka Phil Spector), vanish into obscurity (Scott Walker anyone?), or graduate to judging TV karaoke shows, very few can cite 10 years in a Zen Buddhist centre.

However this is the path New Zealand writer, poet and film maker Richard von Sturmer decided to take in 1993.

Part of the 1980s punk/performance duo Humanimals with his partner Amala (previously Charlotte) Wrightson, von Sturmer made several experimental short films. He also worked as lyricist for several New Zealand bands, including Blam Blam Blam (when he wrote the lyrics for the classic single, ‘There is no depression in New Zealand’) before opting for life at the Rochester Zen Centre, a Buddhist community in upstate New York.

Now, after a seventeen year hiatus he now returns to film making with

Tanka Films, an exhibition of Tanka poetry and film making at the Film Archive from 17 May until 2 June, a highlight being a live performance on Friday 25 May at 6pm.

During his time at Rochester his work appeared regularly in literary journals and anthologies and he edited the international publication

Zen Bow. While defining and concentrating on poetry form he continued his contemplation of Tanka poetry.

Tanka Films includes 26 ‘films’, short visual and text interpretations of tanka – the unrhymed Japanese verse form of five lines. Most of the images that followed to make up

Tanka Films are observational shots of nature and the domestic environment, accompanied by a poem written by von Sturmer.

“Most tanka contain two poetic images. The first is taken from nature; the second, which may proceed, follow, or be woven into the first, is a kind of meditative complement to the nature image.…The tanka poet may be likened to a person holding two mirrors in his hand, one reflecting a scene from nature, the other reflecting himself as he holds the first mirror. The tanka thus provides a look at nature, but it regards the observer of nature as well.”

von Sturmer’s use of digital technology to make Tanka Films was a slow process but the benefits of the medium eventually won him over; “I was suspicious of digital technology for quite a while, I like projected light. (But) the technology has much improved”.

Over the two years of filming, a natural thematic development occurred. “I started with everyday images from my home and neighbourhood, and then extended the terrain to include a wide range of subject matter. Ecological concerns began to appear, and the cycle ends with a global perspective in the final Tanka Film.

von Sturmer has published three books: We Xerox Your Zebras (Modern House, 1988),

A Network of Dissolving Threads

(Auckland University Press, 1991), and Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose (HeadworX, 2005). His partner and collaborator Amala Wrightson is a well-recognised Buddhist leader and teacher in New Zealand. She is the Buddhist representative at an upcoming Interfaith Conference in Waitangi. During a visit to the United States in the summer of 2004, she was given formal permission to teach by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede.

There will be a live performance and talk

as part of this exhibition,

"Dreaming with Words and Images”

- an evening of performance, poetry and film by the artist on Friday 25 May at 6pm. Entry by koha.

This programme will include: “The Travels of V & P” - a performance by Humanimals (Richard and partner Amala Wrightson) constructed from a series of slides von Sturmer discovered amongst the estate of two deceased great Aunts, who went for a series of travels in their old age on ocean liners.

“Dreaming with Words” - a combination of verbal and written images, “At this Time” - a Tarkovsky homage when Richard will talk on the influence of Tarkovsky and his take on Haiku.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Tanka Films

Thursday 17 May – Saturday 2 June at the New Zealand Film Archive mediagallery, cnr Taranaki and Ghuznee Sts

Including “Dreaming with Wortds and Images” an evening of performance, poetry and film

BY THE ARTIST and

HUMANIMALS

Friday 25 May at 6:00pm (70 minutes) Entry by koha.

ENDS

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