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VIEW EVENT PHOTOS
Mia: A Dancer’s Journey
(USA, 2014) 57:13
Director: Maria Ramas & Kate Johnson
Screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Kate Johnson, writer/co-director Maria Ramas, and guest moderator Dan Geller.
Co-presented by San Francisco Ballet / Museum of Performance + Design
Monday, October 5 | 7:00 pm
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Kanbar Theater | 3200 California Street | San Francisco 94118 | MAP
Description
One of the most celebrated ballerinas of the first half of the 20th century, Mia Slavenska was one of a small group of famous émigré dancers who changed the face of American dance by introducing Americans to ballet as an art form. Acknowledged as the most beautiful and versatile of all her contemporaries and as the greatest technician of her era, Slavenska was one of the few ballerinas of her time to form her own companies and commission original ballets.
She was a modernist who moved freely between modern and ballet idioms. In 1952 she convinced Tennessee Williams to allow the Slavenska Franklin Ballet to produce a ballet version of A Streetcar Named Desire. A dance tour de force, it was the first time a contemporary play was turned into a ballet.
In the 1930s–1950s, everyone who loved dance knew the name Mia Slavenska. A half-century later, when she died in 2002, Slavenska believed that she had been completely forgotten. As her daughter, Maria, retraces her mother’s life journey, she unearths the fascinating story of a maverick ballerina and a lost time of dance.
Additional Credits
Producer, Writer, Director Maria Ramas | Producer, Director, Camera, Editor, Motion Graphics and Animation Kate Johnson | Slavenska’s Voice Blythe Danner | Producer Brenda Brkusic | Associate Producer Douglas Turnbaugh | Producer Ted Sprague | Associate Producer Bridget Murnane | Director of Photography, Creative Consultant Michael Masucci | Composer David Raiklen | Assistant Director, Story Consultant Michelle R. Anderson | Tihomir Stivicic Producer, Croatian National Television | Historical Consultant Lynn Garafola, Allegra Fuller Snyder, Malcolm McCormick, Maja Ðurinovic
