Wednesday, March 2, 2011

3.8 - Sam Anderson Rough Cuts: Video and Spectacle in Postwar Sierra Leone

Sam Anderson
Rough Cuts: Video and Spectacle in Postwar Sierra Leone

Masked devils take to the streets to reclaim their city. A war-torn capital tears itself down once again, this time to build itself up. A former military commander marshals dangerous spiritual forces in the name of national reconciliation. After five weeks of preliminary research over the summer and winter breaks, I will discuss some of the struggles and successes of the early stages of a new project in Sierra Leone, and share a ten-minute rough cut of video documentation. Please join me for an informal discussion on image and access, chaos and reconstruction. How can one document the unspeakable? The secret? The invisible? The future?

SAMUEL M. ANDERSON is a second year PhD student in Culture and Performance at UCLA, whose research focuses on aesthetics and politics in the manifestations of the invisible world in West Africa, principally in masked dance. He has recently begun a project on the postwar reconfiguration of militaristic mystic arts in Sierra Leone. Between 2006 and 2008, Sam held a Fulbright scholarship for research in Burkina Faso, where he followed several masking troupes and worked with Ouagadougou-based theatre and dance companies. Other sites of prolonged investigation have included Nigeria, Benin, and Niger. As a video artist, he has collaborated on dance films and interactive animations with groups in the USA, France, and Burkina, including Cie Salia nï Seydou, Cie Philippe Ménard, and Créatures Cie. A former theatre director, Sam co-ran the award-winning Seattle-based company Defibrillator Productions from 2000 until 2006. He received his BA from the University of Washington in Theatre and Anthropology, and his MA from New York University in Performance Studies.