Deren was a Russian-American experimental and avant-garde filmmaker in the 1940'5-50's before she died in 1961. Her fascination with dance, Haitian Voodou and psychology informed a lot of her work. Deren's films use a lot of jumpcuts, superimposition, slow-frame rates and multiple-exposure to achieve her surreal, black and white films. Derren acknowledged dance in "Ritual in Transfigured Time" in suggesting, “A ritual is an action that seeks the realisation of its purpose through the exercise of form…In ritual, the form is the meaning. It’s an inversion towards life, the passage from sterile winter into fertile spring”.
– Maya Deren: Chamber Films, program notes for a presentation, 1960
– Maya Deren: Chamber Films, program notes for a presentation, 1960