Video By Ramapo Professor Selected for PBS Program
(Mahwah) – Video art by Shalom Gorewitz, a visual arts professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, was selected for the PBS program The Territory. His video, My Body is a Boat (2000), was choreographed and performed by Brazilian dancer Regina Miranda and shown as part of her work, Ghazal (a Sufi love poem to God).
In My Body is a Boat, Miranda merges with skeletal ruins that jut out of the water along the coast. Using sequences of still frames and multilayered movements, Gorewitz creates a mysterious and sensual video reflecting on mortality, faith and union.
“For any art to become ghazal, it has to not only describe, but also provide the experience of the intensity of love for The Other,” explains Gorewitz. “The artist is treading a fine line between the sacred and profane. It can never be too much about physical or abstract devotion. How does one sexualize the image without it becoming pornographic? The work has to convey and provide the energy of search, seduction, consummation and merging.”
The video, which received support from Donald Trump, was recorded on the banks of the Hudson River between 57th and 66th Streets in Manhattan. The soundtrack features a voice-over by former Ramapo College student Christen Clark and was created in collaboration with New York City composer and performer Paul Geluso.
It will be broadcast on the Southwest Alternate Media Project program, which is produced in Houston and syndicated on network and cable stations primarily in that region. The video was previously shown as part of the New York City Dance on Film Festival in 2001. For more information, e-mail: shalom@gorewitz.com.
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