Heidi Duckler on Clarice Lispector

Credits

Director: Julie Hebert
DP: Sevdije Kastrati-Dill
Editor: Elisa Cohen
2nd Camera: Andressa Cor
Sound Mixer: Nancy Kwon
DIT / Camera Assistant: Megan Pham
Production Manager: Jeanine DiTomasso
Production Assistant: Adriana Gordon

Post-Production Supervisor: Courtney Graham
Dialogue Editor: Daniel Raphael
Colorist: Bill Dill

The Look What SHE Did! Artists of Los Angeles series is funded in part by the California Arts Council.

Topics

“I write, and rid myself of me. Then at last, I can rest.”

Novelist and short-story writer CLARICE LISPECTOR is considered to be among the greatest female writers of the 20th century. As a child she emigrated from Ukraine to Brazil, where she spent most of her life, and began writing at a young age. First studying law, then journalism, she grew to be one of Brazil’s preeminent modern authors, often compared to Kafka, Rilke and Joyce. Nearly three decades after her death her work was finally translated into multiple languages, introducing her to new readers around the world. Her gorgeous writing nearly defies description, but choreographer Heidi Duckler takes us into Clarice's internal world, with movement and the recounting of a life filled with challenges and brilliance.

Our storytellers share these astonishing women with us conversationally and unscripted; we fact-check afterwards and note any major discrepancies for accuracy.

Storyteller

Heidi Duckler

Heidi Duckler is the Artistic Director and founder of Heidi Duckler Dance in Los Angeles, California and Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Titled the “reigning queen of site-specific performance” by the LA Times, Duckler has created more than 300 dance pieces all over the world. Duckler earned a BS in Dance from the University of Oregon and an MA in Choreography from UCLA, and is currently a Board Member of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance Advancement Council. Awards include the Distinguished Dance Alumna award from the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance, the Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences award, and the National Endowment of the Arts American Masterpiece award. Duckler was a recipient of the 2019 Oregon Dance Film Commission and her work received the award for Best Choreography For the Lens at Verve Dance Film Festival.

Featured Woman

Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lispector (1920 – 1977) was a Brazilian novelist and short story writer, acclaimed internationally for her innovative, stream-of-consciousness style. In the 1940s, barely out of college, she rocked the Brazilian literary establishment with the publication of her debut novel, “Near to the Wild Heart”, reflections of a young female protagonist determined to live freely in a world ordered by men.
Clarice Lispector published nine novels, 85 short stories, five books for children and countless letters and newspaper columns, cementing her reputation as a writer of great power, though she has only been translated into English recently.