Mariee Siou: Circle of Signs
Overview
“This song is a prayer that begs us to heed these warnings from the earth body and reflect on indigenous prophecies from different nations around the world, which speak of the time of The Great Shift. A time when we will be given two paths to walk as human beings, where we must choose whether we continue on the path of acceleration, disconnection and technology, or take the other path back into the right relationship with the earth once again.” Delving into the rich lyrical content, Siou says, “The lyrics ask if we will ever humble ourselves and learn from our mistakes as a species, whose human superiority complex is causing change and destruction to our planetary home at a pace that is beyond comprehension.”
The film was directed by the visionary multi-disciplinary artist Samantha Shay and created with a talented group of collaborators and artists brought together by Samantha in Iceland. A note from the director: “Circle of Signs is a piece about the wildfires rampaging through California, but so much more. It is about climate grief, the hopeless situation capitalism and colonialism has left the planet and youth to take on, and so for this video, I decided to collaborate with a teenager on the entire creative trajectory. It was a tremendous learning experience. Seraphia Behr is 15 and stars in the film, she is a first time actor, and we created the ideas and images together. In this piece, I somehow felt how the suppression of natural burning forests equated to the suppression of the voices of the youth. Somehow, Seraphia is California embodied, struggling with and ultimately reclaiming her wildness, her beauty, her insecurities, her vision for her future, and the lineage of women she comes from. I learned a lot. It was an honor to make this piece for Mariee, and I also got to bring together many amazing female artists whose work is featured in this piece.” |
Director Biography - Samantha Shay
Samantha Shay is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, director of theatre and film, and movement artist. As a creative instigator, catalyzer and master collaborator, her acclaimed body of work challenges traditional boundaries, creates new connections, and dances across the fault lines between disciplines. She is currently a Guest Artist & Researcher at Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, where she began as a Fulbright Scholar in 2021. She is also the Artistic Director of Source Material, an interdisciplinary production company and artist collective, which she founded in 2014. Samantha’s theatrical work has been produced at The Grotowski Institute, the Theatre Olympics, RedCat, HERE Arts (New York), Tjarnarbio (Iceland), LungA (Iceland), and the Edinburgh International Fringe. As a filmmaker, she has made ambitious music videos for KÁRYYN, JFDR, Sóley, Mariee Siou, and Katie Gately, among others. Katie Gately’s Waltz, directed by Shay and starring dancer Bobbi Jene Smith was an international success, recognized by both the music and dance scene, playing numerous film festivals: LA Music Video Awards, Experimental Dance & Music Film Festival, London Music Video Awards, San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Portland Dance Film Festival, Thessaloniki Cinedance International, ScreenDance Film Festival, Opine Dance Film Festival, Jacksonville Dance Film Festival, Utah Dance Film Festival, and BAFTA and Academy Award qualifying HollyShorts and CineQuest. In 2016 her original piece, ‘of Light’, gained international attention when it was developed under the mentorship of Marina Abramović , endorsed by Abramović and praised by Björk in The Guardian. Two songs from the original score were released by Mute Records via composer KÁRYYN, with ‘Moving Masses’ named as Best New Track on Pitchfork. From 2017-2019 Samantha’s original piece made in collaboration with The Grotowski Institute and Nini Julia Bang, ‘A Thousand Tongues’ toured Europe and the US, receiving two nominations for Gríman – The Icelandic Theatre Awards – including Most Innovative Performance. She recently completed her first short film ‘Homesick’, in collaboration with Danielle Agami, and directed the digitally-devised Zoom play ‘In These Uncertain Times’, in response to how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the arts. The New York Times described the performance as “like a lyrical essay, poetic, emotive and fluid,” and it has been used as a resource by numerous academic and critical researchers as a pivotal theatrical work during the pandemic. She recently completed her latest dance film ‘Mother Melancholia’ co-commissioned by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, which premiered at the Pina Bausch Zentrum in Wuppertal, and is currently playing festivals internationally. In March 2023 she premiered Romance at Cinedans, a new dance film by in response to her research into the works of Pina Bausch in an illuminating meeting point with the short story “It was Romance” by Miranda July. Developed in a close collaboration between Shay and an intergenerational ensemble of dancers from Tanztheater Wuppertal, the creative point of departure for “Romance” centers on the company's first transgender dancer, Naomi Brito, and how her transition was catalyzed by the roles of women as she experienced them in the Bausch repertory. Shot on 16mm film in Pina Bausch's iconic and aging Lichtburg rehearsal studio, “Romance” dances on the fault lines between fiction and reality, dance and documentary, in a fertile intergenerational dialogue between past, present and future, and through a fresh and powerful encounter, assures that the power of an aging legacy is never ending. Romance is currently circulating festivals worldwide. |
Still Photos
News & Reviews
"Mariee Siou shares a video for ‘Circle of Signs’, the title track of her new EP" Folk Radio UK
"Watch Mariee Siou's video for 'Circle of Signs' title track" Brooklyn Vegan
"Watch Mariee Siou's video for 'Circle of Signs' title track" Brooklyn Vegan
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