Julie and I met as hospital roommates — both of us having had arthroscopic knee surgery. We learned of each other’s profession and when I stated that I was a dancer her face lit up with, “I’m doing a dance film! Let’s work together!” And of course my face lit up with, “Wonderful! I’d love to!” The rest is history. I had my dance studio in my apartment — built by the charismatic actor Roger Aaron Brown who practiced carpentry between jobs. Julie would come to my studio and take photos of my choreography. We had seamless discussions on concept, the aesthetic look of the film, and the marriage of Nina Simone’s music, Four Women, and the film’s narrative arc. We filmed at Zoetrope Studios on Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood.
Four Women
L. Martina Young
L. Martina Young is a dance artist, writer-orator, myth scholar, Somatics Educator. Originally from Los Angeles, Martina is a multi-year NEA Fellow (1983-85) and recipient of Nevada’s Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts (2008). For 22 years she has maintained a radical hospitality space at her artist loft in the arts district of downtown Reno, NV bringing community residents, civic leaders, and artists together. Her essay, “FLOOD/Mayim, Mayim”—on her aesthetic process of unpacking the mythic imagery of ‘water’ for her 1997 community-interactive performance work FLOOD—was published in Mark Curtis’s book, One Of A Kind: The People and Places That Make Reno The Biggest Little City in the World (2019). Martina was chosen by Stevie Wonder to be the solo dancer in his 1983 music video, Ribbon in the Sky. She’s also the soloist in Julie Dash’s 1977 award-winning film, Four Women, which she choreographed to Nina Simone’s searing song of the same title.
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