NEW ORLEANS— The New Orleans Film Society is helping us see the music with it’s music documentary series Seeing Music.
The next showing is Thursday (3.14.19), when the film “Buckjumping” will take a deep dive into the local dance scene.
Filmmaker Lily Keber stopped by to tell us about her work and making the documentary.
Keber said, “Bayou Maharajah was my first film. I think in retrospect, had I known what I was getting myself into, I might have thought twice. I was bartending at Vaughn’s and I heard James Booker on the jukebox. And it was like music I had never heard before. And then the stories that people would tell while sitting at the bar hearing that music, that’s really what hooked me of like who was this guy that you know, people could open their mouths and say anything and it would be pretty true.
Of her latest work, Keber said, “Buckjumping” is a film about dancing in New Orleans. Six different communities and their style of dance. And, yeah, second line is one. High school marching bands. Indians. A funeral. Bounce. Drag. It’s many different kinds of dance. But it’s ultimately about New Orleanians. You know, and where the impetus for that is just living in the city. You know. like, just seeing the way people move here. I’m from the Appalachians. I’m from North Carolina. And let’s just say people don’t move like that where I’m from. You know, it’s like growing up with so much like shame or taboo around dance. You know, or like, no one wants to be the first person on the dance floor. In New Orleans everyone wants to be the first person on the dance floor.
And that is what really drew me in. It was so different than where I’m from. And yet it is so crucial to this city.”
You can watch “Buckjumping” Thursday at 7pm at Lupin Hall at the NOCCA Institute. It’s part of the Seeing Music Series presented by the New Orleans Film Society.
Tickets are available to the public for $10, or you can become a member of the Film Society and see it for free.