Lives of Performers

“Lives of Performers” unfolds in roughly fourteen episodes, each characterized by a different cinematic treatment of the real and fictional aspects of Rainer’s role of director and choreographer and of the performers’ roles during the making of previous work and the film itself. The first section is edited footage of an actual rehearsal of “Walk, She Said” for a live performance at the Whitney Museum. The second section shows photographic documentation of a theatrical work from 1971 called “Grand Union Dreams,” while the voice over narration describes the content of the photos and the changing intimacies of the performers, fictional in this instance. In other sections, the narrative develops (after a fashion) as the performers talk and move about in a barren studio setting containing a couch and several chairs. Simultaneous voice over commentary by the performers – sometimes read, sometimes improvised from the scenario – alternates with intertitles, constantly interpreting the enigmatic sequences of unheard (seen) discussion and implied emotional complexities. The narration is further complicated by the fact that part of it was recorded during an actual performance, so that the laughter of the then- present audience is heard at various times. Valda Setterfield performs a solo dance at one point (originally choreographed for “Grand Union Dreams”). It is not very well appreciated by Fernando Torm, her (presumed) lover. (“He has seen it a hundred times,”Fernando’s voice tells us.) The film ends with a “real performance,” a series of tableau vivants modeled after production stills of G.W. Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box or Lulu.” Performers: Valda Setterfield, John Erdman, Shirley Soffer, Epp Kotkas, James Barth, Sarah Soffer and Yvonne Rainer. Written and directed by Yvonne Rainer. Cinematography by Babette Mangolte. Edited by Yvonne Rainer and Babette Mangolte. Sound Recording by Gene De Fever and Gordon Mumma. Assistance to the Cinematographer by Epp Kotkas.