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Kuyenda N'kubvina (Walking is Dancing)

Deborah Stratman

2010 00:40:15 MalawiEnglishColorStereo4:3DV video

Description

Kuyenda N’kubvina looks at how thought and culture propagate in the slender nation of Malawi. Weaving our way through video halls, book stores, dance floors and radio stations, in cities and small villages, we meet Malawians who traffic in ideas, reflecting the rhythms of Malawian contemporary life. The video was instigated by the filmmaker’s relative ignorance about the people and culture of southeast Africa, and accompanies her as she seeks out individuals and infrastructures that channel and articulate Malawian identity.

“Stratman has a special interest in sound and music and the way this functions in society. She went on a journey through Malawi to discover the rhythm of life there.”

— Amakula Film Festival, Kampala Uganda

 

About Deborah Stratman

Filmmaker Deborah Stratman works in a territory between experimental and documentary genres.  In her films and frequent work in other media, including drawing, sculpture, sound, photography and small press, she explores the history, uses, mythologies and control of highly varied landscapes, from Muslim Xinjiang China to suburban southern California. Her recent work addresses American constructs of Freedom, the junction between technology and faith and contemporary locations of the supernatural. Stratman teaches in the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Stratman was the subject of a mid-career retrospective,The Thing Unnamed, at MoMA New York in 2013.