In
the spirit of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival,
Balagan's "Expanded Genre of Documentary"
and "Art and Politics" series, the
10th season starts with the Boston premiere:
Kings
of the Sky, 68min, video, 2004
Director:
Deborah Stratman
an official selection
of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2004 -
Boston Premiere
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"This
project was shot over four months with Adil
and his troupe as we toured Chinese Turkestan,
performing nightly in tiny oasis villages. Adil
descends from a long line of Dawaz (tightrope)
performers, and is now teaching his daughters
the craft. Since he first broke the Guinness
World Record in 1997, Adil’s fame has
eclipsed anything achieved by his forbears.
He has become an inadvertent national icon for
his people’s struggle, bearing uncanny
resemblance to the Dawaz hero of an old Uyghur
myth who once freed his countrymen from an oppressive
reign of invading ghosts, an apt metaphor for
the ongoing tension between the Uyghurs and
the Han Chinese. Despite years of government
repression, nationalist sentiment amongst ethnic
Uyghurs quietly boils under the surface. Recent
separatist demonstrations in the 1990s resulted
in the government’s “Strike Hard”
policy to incarcerate, and in some cases execute,
outspoken Uyghur nationalists – a policy
being exacted in increasingly harsh ways since
September 11th. Throughout Xinjiang there is
a heavy police and military presence. News is
controlled, travel and mosque attendance are
restricted and public meetings are forbidden.
One can be jailed for years on mere suspicion
of subversion. In this environment, resistance
tends to happen in smaller ways. By portraying
the intimate details of everyday life amidst
the Dawaz troupe, “Kings of the Sky”
reveals to those unfamiliar with Uyghur culture
the small truths which together form a sense
of national and political identity. Kings of
the Sky is a film about seeking balance: balance
between minority separatist yearnings and Han
Chinese rule... balance between ancient cultural
traditions and an modern technologies…
balance between an American filmmaker and a
remote Muslim community... and balance between
our flightless bodies and the eternal laws of
gravity." - DS
"Chicagoan
Deborah Stratman, who specializes in experimental
documentaries, spent four months with tightrope
walker Adil Hoxur – cited in the Guinness
Book of World Records and the latest descendant
of a family of tightrope performers over many
centuries – as he and his troupe toured
Chinese Turkestan and performed nightly in small
villages. Among his biggest fans are fellow
Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim people seeking religious
and political autonomy. Stratman emphasizes
the everyday over the exotic, a consistently
fresh and personal way of relating to the material;
she trusts viewers to make many of the right
connections but never comes across as esoteric.
Her sense of rhythm in this digital video, particularly
evident in the way she edits and lingers over
certain kinds of movement, is especially impressive."
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
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"Deborah
Stratman documented near west side drag racers
in “The BLVD” (1999) and fluorescent
suburban nightscapes in “In Order Not
To Be Here” (2002), but now this Chicago
filmmaker goes on the road in East Turkestan
with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Dawaz
Troupe in an allusively anthropological look
at folk heroes and pop stars performing with
uncertain political footing.
This lively ensemble of three dozen acrobats,
jugglers, clowns, musicians and trapeze artists
just lost seven members on tour who defected
in Toronto, explains Stratman in the end credits.
Scenes of tightrope hero Adil Hoxur posing with
fans for snapshots needs no explanation, but
later scenes of Chinese forces viciously swinging
tree branches at throngs of locals does. For
context, Stratman adds a few unidentified voiceovers
that state that Chinese authorities burn books
in Uyghur language, champion a Wal-Mart style
shopping complex, and promise to quel ethnic
Muslim insurgents who might interfere with the
region’s oil reserves.
"Stratman
prefers behind-the-scenes details over geopolitics,
as she frames lyrical close-ups of Uyghurs winching
the tightrope, dabbing mascara, and stretching
legs before performances. She gazes at the hands
of women napping on a vast crimson rug, then ends
the revery by finding a spot to lay down herself.
After shooting a girl take a bad fall, Stratman
edits a montage of performers proudly showing
off their scars. And she shows one of her own.“Kings
of the Sky” hovers between a traveler’s
diary, a visual poem of ethnographic imagery,
and an advocacy video for preserving a traditional
art form. It’s as if Stratman ran off, joined
the circus and learned a balancing act of her
own".- Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun Times
Deborah
Stratman, primarily a film/videomaker,
works in other media including photography,
drawing, sound and architectural intervention.
She is currently soliciting public responses
about fear (call 1-800-585-1078) and evacuation
routes for a calendar project in Texas. Her
recently acclaimed film In Order Not To Be Here
examines anxiety, surveillance and suburban
environment. Her latest film, Kings of the Sky,
documents the travels of a tightrope troupe
in East Turkestan. She was recently in Laos
as photographer and facilitator for the Photo
Archive Group’s Living Photographers of
Laos project and is presently working on some
short films about falling. She teaches at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University
of Illinois-Chicago and is currently a visiting
instructor at Cal Arts.
