Biography of Maya Deren.

19 17, Maya deren was born in a Jewish family in the former Soviet Union and Ukraine. Her father Solomon Delansky is a famous psychiatrist and thinker, and her mother Mary Federer studied music. 1922, a series of anti-Semitic massacres broke out in the Soviet Union, forcing the Dylan family to flee to Syracuse, New York, USA. Soon after, her father simplified her surname to "Deren".

From 65438 to 0930, Dylan was sent to the League of Nations School in Switzerland to study French, German and Russian. 1933, she returned to new york, studied journalism and political science at Syracuse University, joined the Trotskyite League of Young Socialists, and became active in some Trotskyite activities. Dylan believed in capitalism until the end of 1930. During this period, she met the political activist Gregory Badak. They got married when she was eighteen, and then moved to new york. From 65438 to 0935, Darren completed her bachelor's degree at new york University. While studying at new york University, Dylan began to get in touch with photography and movies. The couple took an active part in many social activities in new york. The marriage ended in a divorce of 1938. Darren received a master's degree in English literature from Smith College on 1939.

After Maya Deren graduated from her second husband, Alexander Hammid, Dylan returned to Greenwich Village in new york. She works as a secretary for some writers and publishers and also tries to write, including poems, novels, essays and newspaper articles. She once discussed the religious motivation in dance in an article, which later became an important element of her artistic creation. 194 1 year, she worked as an assistant in Catherine Dunham Dance Company and toured with the group. The dance troupe stayed in Los Angeles for several months, where Darren met Alexandr Hacken schmid, a talented Czech filmmaker and photographer who immigrated to the United States because of the expansion of Nazi Germany and was employed in a series of news short films "March of Time". They got married the next year. At Dylan's request, Hackenschmied changed its name to Alexander Hammid (nicknamed Sasha) because Dylan thought the name Hackenschmied was too Jewish, even though Sasha was not Jewish. She also complained that the name "Eleanora" made her unhappy and asked Hamid to help her find a new name. Hamid consulted some fairy books and finally chose "Maya", which is an old saying representing "water" and the name of the Buddha's mother. In Indian mythology, Maya is a goddess who makes people have real illusions about illusory images.

Work in a movie.

Darren, in his early forties, used his father's inheritance to buy a second-hand 16mm Bolex camera. With the help of Hamid, she used this camera to shoot her first and most famous work, Mesh in the Afternoon (1943). The play is regarded as the pioneer of American avant-garde movies. The production of this film lasted for two weeks. It started as a silent film, and later 1959 was accompanied by Dylan's third husband Ito Teiji. At that time, a group of artists were active in the social circle of Greenwich Village, such as Dadaism artist Marcel Toussaint, surrealist artist André Breton, composer John Cage and experimental animator Oskar Fischinger. She and Marcel Toussaint co-produced a film "The Cradle of the Witch" on 1943, but the film was never finished. 1944, Dylan's second work On Land appeared, with the participation of not only Dylan and Hamid, but also John Cage and Dylan's good friend Hella Hyman. Hyman later worked as a photographer for "Ritual" in "Time of Transformation" and married Darren after his divorce from Hamid.

During the period of 1946, Darren rented the Provincetown Theatre in new york, and showed his three films for several nights: Lost in the Afternoon, On Land and Learning to Choreograph for Cameras, and named the screenings three abandoned films, which was a bold move to encourage filmmakers to promote their works independently. In the same year, she was awarded the Guggenheim Foundation Scholarship for her "creative film works" and became the first filmmaker to win this honor. This money was the main source of funds for her later visit to Haiti. 1947, she won the Cannes International Film Festival 16 mm experimental film international award for Lost in the Afternoon, becoming the first American filmmaker to win the award, and she was also the first female filmmaker to win the award. This year, she divorced Hamid. From 65438 to 0948, Dylan and China immigrants co-produced Meditation on Violence. This film used China Kung Fu as a means of expression, which blurred the boundary between violence and beauty and constructed an endless harmonious artistic conception.

Most of Darren's works are written, directed and performed by herself. She used speeches and screenings to promote her works in the United States, Canada and Cuba.

Criticize Hollywood

Throughout the forties and fifties, Dylan constantly attacked Hollywood's monopoly position in American film art, politics and economy. She exaggeratedly said, "I make movies with the money Hollywood spends on lipstick." And accused Hollywood of being the chief culprit in preventing movies from becoming creative art.

Haiti and voodoo

The Guggenheim Foundation Award allowed Dylan to visit her interested voodoo in Haiti. Dunham once took dancing in Haiti as the topic of his master's thesis, and Dylan's interest may have come from this. From 1947 to 1955, she spent 2 1 month in Haiti, filmed a lot of voodoo ceremonies and dances, and recorded a lot of Haitian folk music. Unfortunately, these records could not be made into a complete work in her lifetime. It was not until 198 1, that is, 20 years after her death that she was edited by her third husband Teijo Ito and her second wife Cherel Winett Ito. Her fascination with voodoo made her participate in and convert to it. With the help of famous scholars Joseph Campbell and Gregory Bateson, she wrote a book about Voodoo: Knight of God: The Living God of Haiti, which has always been regarded as an authoritative work in this field.

Darren's death

Darren's last film Eye of the Night premiered in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on 1955. Her financial dispute with the producer prevented the film from being released in new york until 1959. 1960, Dylan married Ito Teijo, a japanese pop native who was 18 years younger than her. Teijo, the son of a dancer friend of Dylan's, accompanied her to Haiti in the mid-1950s. He composed music for Lost in the Afternoon and Eye of the Night.

196 1 year1month 13 years, Dylan died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44. There are different opinions about the cause of her sudden cerebral hemorrhage, and some rumors think that it is caused by the curse of voodoo; Others say it has something to do with her long-term use of amphetamines. In addition, Dylan may have inherited his father's hypertension. Her fierce debate about Teijo's inheritance right in court is also considered to be one of the reasons. But her friends generally believe that anxiety and malnutrition led to this tragedy. A friend recalled that she and Teijo were poor and even hungry for a while. But Maya loves her cat very much. When they have some money, they buy food for kittens and continue to starve.

Emperor Yao scattered Maya's ashes on the side of Mount Fuji in Japan.