Series: New Television
Program: O Panama
Date: 1985-01-01
Subject: Drama

Clip Description
"O Panama," 1985, a video drama, was created by James Benning, based on a story by Burt Barr. A series of short images or vignettes, some of which are repeated, build to tell the story of a feverish man (Willem Dafoe) in a city apartment remembering time he spent in Panama, probably as a soldier. The suggestion is that as he endures the fever, he is visited by recollections, visualizations, and hallucinations of other places and events. Early on in the work, words describing but not pinpointing the man's illness slowly cross the screen. There is very little spoken text. Dafoe is seen lying in bed, sweating, moving about the apartment, watching a Western on television, walking his dog, and listening to the radio. Intercut with this are images of postcards and snapshots of exotic animals; snowy buildings; and Dafoe at a waterfall, playing baseball, and underneath an army tent singing a warbling version of the national anthem.

Program Description
"O Panama," 1985, a video drama, was created by James Benning, based on a story by Burt Barr. A series of short images or vignettes, some of which are repeated, build to tell the story of a feverish man (Willem Dafoe) in a city apartment remembering time he spent in Panama, probably as a soldier. The suggestion is that as he endures the fever, he is visited by recollections, visualizations, and hallucinations of other places and events. Early on in the work, words describing but not pinpointing the man's illness slowly cross the screen. There is very little spoken text. Dafoe is seen lying in bed, sweating, moving about the apartment, watching a Western on television, walking his dog, and listening to the radio. Intercut with this are images of postcards and snapshots of exotic animals; snowy buildings; and Dafoe at a waterfall, playing baseball, and underneath an army tent singing a warbling version of the national anthem.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/O5.HTML