Series: New Television
Program: New Television
Episode: 102
Subject: Aging
People: Beauchamp, Louise-Marie; Desjardins, Julien; Ducharme, Gratia; Palardy, Claude; Tessier, Mikael

Clip Description
"...[In] this short film...members of a family drive an elderly woman to a nursing home. Through both realistic and dreamlike sequences, the film translates, without the use of words, the character's inner experience into memorable and haunting images." -- WGBH press release.

The piece moves from everyday images to evocative fantasy scenarios. The family drops off the older woman, who leaves her countryside home. Images follow, showing the family and a group of elders in a desert like setting. The woman sits alone on a bed amidst this landscape.

"Purcell's aria ‘When I Am Laid in Earth' provides the tone and structure." -- WGBH press release.

The aria is from "Dido and Aeneas." The musical arrangement is by Frederic Weber, and the piece is sung by Louise-Marie Beauchamp.

The work was broadcast as a segment of episode 102 (1991) of "New Television." Produced and directed by Claude Palardy.

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/Elder63.HTML