Angela Kirsten had performed George Balanchine's ballet 'Episodes' with others in Berlin. During a study period in New York, she offered to show me the steps of the second movement, 'Ricercata', with music by Anton Webern from Bach. I filmed on the terrace of International House on Riverside Drive. I had fitted the Bolex 16mm camera with a motor so I could film without interruption, and I continued until the film ran out at the end of the movement, casting a glance at the nearby cathedral, and replacing the lens in the process. That same evening, 27 May 1973, I flew back to Milan. Having developed the film, I saw that it was overexposed, perhaps because the material had expired. I put it aside and forgot about it. Forty years later, around 2010, Home Movies sent me the digitisation. I showed it to Angela, my wife since 1976, who was enthusiastic about it. Angela passed away in 2018, and a dancer friend recalled in a writing the emotion of rediscovering with her those images of art and youth made more impalpable by overexposure. I then added the wonderful music by Bach-Webern, with a caption indicating that Angela had danced from memory, without accompaniment. But music and dance end together. I later supplemented the film with other found black-and-white images of Angela practising. Thus a series of circumstances and coincidences contribute to a work on time, life, its elusive and recurring traces.

(Massimo Bacigalupo)