Editing Maya Deren (section)

==Film career==
Deren defined cinema as an art, provided an intellectual context for film viewing, and filled a theoretical gap for the kinds of [[independent film]]s that film societies were featuring.<ref>{{cite book |title=Points of Resistance: Women, Power & Politics in the New York Avant-garde Cinema, 1934–1971 |last=Rabinowitz |first=Lauren |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |year=1991 |location=Urbana, IL |pages=49–91 |chapter=Maya Deren and an American Avant-garde Cinema}}</ref> As Sarah Keller states, “Maya Deren lays claim to the honor of being one of the most important pioneers of the American film avant-garde with a scant seventy-five or so minutes of finished films to her credit.”<ref>Sarah Keller, "Frustrated Climaxes: On Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Witch’s Cradle," ''Cinema Journal'' 52, no. 3 (Spring 2013): 75.</ref>

Deren began to screen and distribute her films in the United States, [[Canada]], and [[Cuba]], lecturing and writing on [[avant-garde]] film theory, and additionally on Vodou. In February 1946 she booked the [[Provincetown Playhouse]] in Greenwich Village for a major public exhibition, titled ''Three Abandoned Films'', in which she showed ''[[Meshes of the Afternoon]]'' (1943), ''[[At Land]]'' (1944) and ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945).<ref name="sicherman" /> The event was completely sold out, inspiring [[Amos Vogel]]'s formation of [[Cinema 16]], the most successful film society of the 1950s.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Temple University Press| isbn = 978-1-4399-0530-2| last = Macdonald| first = Scott |author-link=Scott MacDonald (media scholar) | title = Cinema 16: Documents Toward History Of Film Society| date = 2010 |page=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ivmisn4Rm_8C |access-date=February 29, 2020 |via=GoogleBooks}}</ref>

In 1946, she was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for "Creative Work in the Field of Motion Pictures", and in 1947, won the Grand Prix International for avant-garde film at the [[Cannes Film Festival]] for ''Meshes of the Afternoon''. She then created a scholarship for experimental filmmakers, the Creative Film Foundation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/158493/Maya-Deren |title=Maya Deren &#124; biography - American director and actress |website=Britannica.com |access-date=August 24, 2015}}</ref>

Between 1952 and 1955, Deren collaborated with the [[Metropolitan Opera]] Ballet School and [[Antony Tudor]] to create ''[[The Very Eye of Night]]''.

Deren's background and interest in dance appears in her work, most notably in the short film ''[[A Study in Choreography for Camera]]'' (1945). This combination of dance and film has often been referred to as "choreocinema", a term first coined by American dance critic [[John Martin (dance critic)|John Martin]].<ref name="Korossi 2017">{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/maya-deren-meshes-of-the-afternoon|title=Maya Deren: seven films that guarantee her legend|last=Korossi|first=Georgia|date=April 28, 2017|publisher=[[British Film Institute|British Film Institute (BFI)]]|language=en|access-date=2021-12-02}}</ref>

In her work, she often focused on the unconscious experience, such as in ''Meshes of the Afternoon.'' This is thought to be inspired by her father who was a student of psychiatrist [[Vladimir Bekhterev]] who explored trance and hypnosis as neurological states.<ref name="Durkin 2013">{{Cite journal|last=Durkin|first=Hannah|date=2013|title=Cinematic "Pas de Deux": The Dialogue between Maya Deren's Experimental Filmmaking and Talley Beatty's Black Ballet Dancer in "A Study in Choreography for Camera" (1945)|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24485526|journal=Journal of American Studies|volume=47|issue=2|pages=385–403|doi=10.1017/S0021875813000121|jstor=24485526|s2cid=144363190|issn=0021-8758}}</ref> She also regularly explored themes of gender identity,  incorporating elements of introspection and mythology. Despite her feminist subtext, she was mostly unrecognized by feminist writers at the time, even influential writers [[Claire Johnston (film theorist)|Claire Johnston]] and [[Laura Mulvey]] ignored Deren at the time,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Nichols |first1=Bill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NA8a2jbCUTcC&dq=maya+deren&pg=PA3 |title=Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde: Includes the Complete Text of An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film |last2=Deren |first2=Maya |date=2001-10-31 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-22732-3 |language=en}}</ref> though Mulvey later would give Deren this recognition, since their works were often in conversation with each other.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Geller |first=Theresa L. |title=The Personal Cinema of Maya Deren: "Meshes of the Afternoon" and ITS Critical Reception in the History of the Avant-Garde |date=2006 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23541020 |journal=Biography |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=140–158 |jstor=23541020 |issn=0162-4962}}</ref>