Freedom and Unfreedom

Synopsis

Freedom and Unfreedom unfolds in a single two-and-a-half-minute take. In a moody, dialogue-free piece, a single African-American figure appears in an abstract landscape, dancing among multicolored energy fields. The limbless, spiritless figure dances back and forth, only to be joined by another. Suddenly, dissonant phrases emerge as a hard gray boundary descends between them, and soon more and more walls begin to collapse around the figure until it is completely trapped in a small box, roughly the size and level of the compartments in which slaves were transported from Africa to America. Segment and first part of the film Suite from Freedom (2004).