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Limon: A Life Beyond Words


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I had the opportunity to purchase the Jose Limon documentary Limon: A Life Beyond Words on DVD recently and I would heartily recommend it. The DVD was pricey ($55) but worth it for the many filmed performance excerpts it contains. If you are a Limon fan, you will enjoy the footage from the different periods of the Limon Dance Company.

The documentary itself moves along at a brisk pace (about 70 minutes) and includes interviews with just about everyone you would want to hear from (i.e. Betty Jones, Pauline Koner, Lucas Hoving, etc.) Nothing too much new is said although there are brief but interesting discussions of Limon's departure from the Doris Humphrey/Charles Weidman company in the early-'40s and his belief that he had nothing in common with the postmodern dance of the early-60s.

I ordered my copy through a link I was sent in an e-mail from the Limon company. I am assuming you can order directly from the company or the Limon Institute but I am not positive about that.

Edited by miliosr
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If this is the same Limon documentary that was shown a few years ago at the Dance On Camera Festival at the Walter Reade, I agree. I remember thinking how good so much of the camerawork on the choreography was and wondering who had been behind the camera. I couldn't tell who was responsible for what in the credits at the time. Is it made clear on the DVD? (I'm not interested in the interview camerawork, just the performance footage).

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The credits do list who did the filming and (in some cases) when the dances were filmed.

For instance, the documentary features beautifully filmed footage of staged-for-the-camera performances of "The Moor's Pavane" and "Missa Brevis" from (I think) 1965. "The Moor's Pavane" is especially interesting because it reunites the "classic" cast (Limon, Hoving, Koner, Jones) ten years after they were filmed in the performance of the same work that appears on the Three Modern Dance Classics DVD. The credits state that this was a public broadcasting production of some sort.

I would have to go back and reread the credits but I think every attempt was made to notate the source material.

Postscript: I checked the credits and the footage of "The Moor's Pavane" and "Missa Brevis" is from Festival of the Arts: The Dance Theatre of Jose Limon (1965). Jack Dubin directed and Thirteen/WNET provided the footage.

Edited by miliosr
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