Join us for the premiere screening of Soldiers & Dancers: The Art of a Princely State, a new documentary film reflecting on an ancient performing art from Mayurbhanj, East India. The result of an expedition in dance ethnography by MDI resident Judith Blank, this film secures digital transfers of Super 8 film stock shot on-site during performances in 1969-1970. A short Q&A and audience feedback session will follow the screening. This project is a collaboration by mother and son, Judith Blank and Joshua Alsup.
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About the filmmaker: Judith Blank was born in 1942 in Pittsburg, PA and raised in the Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. Pursuing studies at Oberlin College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Chicago, she achieved her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology in 1973. Judith arrived on MDI in 1977 to teach anthropology at College of the Atlantic, along with her husband Steve Alsup, a blacksmith. Since 1982, Judith has practiced weaving as an art form, and for thirty years worked half-time at the Northeast Harbor Library. Now retired, she is completing work in cross-cultural aesthetics.