Live from Shiva's Dancefloor (2003)
"(After 9/11), it seemed important,
in a strange way, to (present) this counter-intuitive
thought..." - Richard Linklater on his short film
Timothy "Speed" Levitch has perhaps
the most quirky, intelligent and important philosophical
mind at work in American today. Calling himself a
"cruiser" (a documentary about him is called "The
Cruise"), Levitch supports himself by giving guided
tours of New York City and impressing and delighting
his audience with his odd sense of history, philosophy
and American culture. It's no surprise then that he
might be the most interesting man alive to ask about
NYC in the post 9/11 world.
Levitch reminds me of that other
NYC denizen and spoken word performance artist (I
want to change that word to performancist) Laurie
Anderson. The androgynous musician and speaker was
in Austin just a few weeks ago also bringing her unique
sense of the post 9/11 world to the elitist Paramount
patrons. Anyway, these two are perhaps the most interesting
voices (both metaphorically and literally) in the
art world today. Richard Linklater, who cast Levitch
in his own cerebral gabfest "Waking Life," places
him in the center of a short film here and lets the
performancist spew forth anything and everything that
comes from his delightful little mind. It is perhaps
the most wonderful 20 minutes of dialogue ever committed
to film.
Levitch takes us on a tour of the
Wall Street district of NYC, something he's been doing
for his paying customers for years, and allows us
to get used to just how his mind thinks. But he's
got a far more serious and unique abstraction to lay
on us in the second half of the film. The main thrust
of this second part of the film is what Levitch wants
to do at "Ground Zero," the empty space that is now
where the World Trade Center once stood. If you don't
want this film's idea to be spoiled for you then you
should stop reading here!
Levitch begins by asking us to open
up our minds to the possibilities for the space and
then reminds us that just by having the empty space
and opening our minds to the possibilities of what
it could contain is an important enough use of the
space. But feeling a need, perhaps to placate those
who see the world in more tactile and tangible terms,
Levitch eventually purposes turning the space into
what he calls a "joy park." His plan is to allow a
herd of buffalo, the most symbolic of all American
animals, really, to roam free in the space. He even
twists this idea into a logical economical proposal
suggesting that it will stimulate not a bull or a
bear market but a Bison Market!
Levitch doesn't think that this
idea will ever happen, mind you. He understands the
power of performance art. He understands that the
true power and the beauty of the idea is in the relating
of the idea to other people. It doesn't have to be
tangible to be experienced or realized (screw you
tactile people!) to be enjoyed. Levitch loves the
beauty and the artistry of relating ideas to one and
other in a free society. His idea was conceived in
a roundabout way, in the beautiful way that art is
often conceived. It began with inspiration from another
artist in California, it was then molded into another
idea from a friend in NYC and eventually this notion
was given new meaning by Levitch and recorded onto
video by Linklater. Levitch calls this "the beautiful
conversation that we call, for lack of a better name,
art." He then further poeticizes it by calling "Live
from Shiva's Dancefloor" a "California dream turned
into a New York conversation brought to you by way
of Austin..."
It's hard to describe the power
and the beauty of hearing Timothy "Speed" Levitch
speak. Linklater understands it and that is why, in
two films now, he has allowed the man a simple platform:
a running camera loaded with recording material (actually,
in both cases, digital video tape). See "Waking Life."
And if you're lucky enough to get the opportunity,
see "Live from Shiva's Dancefloor." Experience the
beauty that is "Speed." ### Notes: ### Run time is
approximately 20 minutes. The film's images consist
mainly of Levitch talking on the street and aerial
shots of Ground Zero.
The film debuted at Sundance in
2003 but Linklater could not attend the screening
presumably because he was working on "The School of
Rock." He said that the screening at SXSW in 2003
was the first time he had seen the film with an audience.
Viewed in March 2003 at the SXSW
Film Festival.
