Notions of Freedom

2007

16min

Ulysses Jenkins charts the history of jazz—what he calls “the first true American art form"—from its beginnings in New Orleans and the American South to the classic work of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and through the major innovations of Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and Miles Davis. Also included are clips of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, explicitly linking the development of jazz to the Civil Rights Movement. Motion-capture animated figures are seen dancing, superimposed, over the archival footage of the musicians. Wearing colorful costumes, they perform Jenkins’ original choreography. The dancers exert a powerful influence over the historical documentation as their movements extend across the decades and, finally, into the future.