Club Sandwich and Canyon Cinema present an evening of musical performances by Ascended Master and Common Eider, King Eider followed by the animations of Lawrence Jordan. The elements of ritual and mythology, which influence the aesthetics of both of these musical projects, also emerge in Jordans films. Combining 19th century ephemera with futuristic spacemen through rhythmic motion, Jordans animated cut-outs use free association to build landscapes out of dream imagery and the uncanny.
Our Lady of the Sphere, 16mm, 10mins
A colour collage of rococo imagery juxtaposed with symbols and imagery from antiquity to the space age. Drawing from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the film leads us deep into a wondrous world conjured from an array of fantastic imagery, on an adventure into the unknown. ICO Essentials
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 16mm, 42mins
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which utilizes the classical engravings of Gustav Doré as backdrops and voice of Orson Welles as the narrator. In the story told by Coleridge, the old Mariner wantonly kills the albatross and suffers the wrath of the gods. Jordan transforms this tale into a surreal opium dream. In this film the poems verse, animated collage and spontaneous soundtrack, deliver a hypnotic and surreal rhythm that serves as the dominant structure of the film, rather than a traditional plot.
***
Larry Jordan is an independent filmmaker who has been working in the Bay Area in California since 1955, and making films since 1952. He has produced some 40 experimental and animation films, and three feature-length dramatic films. Jordan is also one of the founding directors of Canyon Cinema Cooperative. He has shown films and lectured throughout the country and is presently chairman of the film department
at the San Francisco Art Institute.
***
Club Sandwich is an all-ages show collective that puts on events for under-the-radar musicians, mixing the best touring and local music. In a locale where an active all-ages venue does not exist, Club Sandwich events serve to incubate the next generation of artists, providing an alternative to the mass produced arena concert or church-sponsored all-ages shows that become the default entertainment for the underage.
***
Canyon Cinema distributes independent film made in Super 8mm, 16mm and 35mm films, an organization of filmmakers that initially operated as a showcase for local work in Bruce Baillie’s Canyon, California backyard in 1961. Having grown from a catalog of 12 filmmakers to the present day collection that contains personal prints from over 320 filmmakers, Canyon Cinema is one of just two filmmaker cooperatives in the United States that provides affordable and ready access to a collection of films, which trace the long and storied history of underground and experimental cinema.
www.clubsandwichbayarea.com
www.canyoncinema.com
www.myspace.com/ascendedmaster
