︎ CONTACT:
erykadellenbach@gmail.com
CONTENTS-
PBS
photos by Jono Melamed
photos by Whitney Browne
E r y k a D e l l e n b a c h
is a filmmaker, performance artist, educator and Emmy-winning videojournalist based in the Sonoran Southwest. Their embodied films and performances are rites of passage for themself and their collaborators, navigated by consent rituals, mutual unearthing, haptic coding and a belief in transformation through co-creation. Their work explores relationships to power, the malleability of consciousness, and the thresholds psychophysical experience.
Their process and technique have been informed by studies in dances of resistance including Butoh, flamenco and martial arts. They are grateful to the teachers who have offered potent dances and knowledges influencing their path: Wendy Clinard & Sonia Sanchez (flamenco), Atsushi Takenouchi, Yumiko Yoshioka and Vangeline (Butoh), Chen Huixian (Chen Taiji) & Yunuen Rhi (Baguazhang), and Mestre Besouro Preto Manganga (capoeira). They have worked with artists across mediums including Yunuen Rhi, Martin Toloku, Atsushi Takenouchi, Tino Sehgal, Amanda Gutierrez, Tori Wrånes, Éva Mag, Matty Davis, Nola Sporn Smith, Amelia de Rudder/La Casa de Satanas and the band HOGG.
Eryka has presented work at venues such as Alliance Française Kumasi (Ghana), crazinisT artisT studio (Ghana), Communitism (Greece), Movement Research at the Judson Memorial Church, Coaxial Arts (LA), Casa Moloch (MX), Lausanne Underground Music & Film Festival (Switzerland), Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Roulette Intermedium, Green River Cemetery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Intuit Outsider Art Museum, Links Hall, No Nation Gallery, and at the Shiryaevo Bienalle of Contemporary Art (Russia). They have been a resident artist at perfocraZe International Artist Residency (Ghana), eX...it! international butoh dance exchange and performance festival (Germany), Earthdance (MA), Echo Luna (Ukraine) and Cucalorus (NC).
They earned a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a master’s degree in Film, Video, New Media, Animation and Sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Eryka currently works as a film instructor at the Tohono O’odham Community College, and continue to work independently as a freelance filmmaker, performance artist, choreographer, educator and interviewer. During their time as a Senior Videographer and Editor at Arizona Public Media they were awarded an Emmy for their videography and nominated for three. They have been a celluloid filmmaking instructor at MONO NO AWARE, a collaborator of the transnational group HEKLER and an advocate with California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP).
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image by Raven JacksonHome
K’i’ik I’inaj: Blood Seeds for the Next Planting
ritual film made in collaboration with Yunuen Rhi
soundtrack by Haydeé Jiménez
performance concept by Yunuen Rhi
camera and edit by Eryka Dellenbach
performed by Yunuen Rhi & Eryka Dellenbach
K'i'ik I'inaj: Blood Seeds for the Next Planting is a trans-border ritual film made between Los Angeles and Yucatán that reclaims the power of our migrations, in particular the Henequen slave trade that brought Mayas, Yaquis, Chinese and Koreans, together in Yucatan from 1880-1910. Speaking from our subsequent migration to the United States; this offering to the spirits who merged amidst those cataclysms, honors a forgotten Mayan blood rite on a thorned Ceiba- The Mayan creation story tree—growing behind a US police station.
thank you Corázon del Sol for the guardianship during filming in Los Angeles
supported by Coaxial Arts and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
Screenings in order:
Coaxial Arts (Los Angeles, US)
Casa Moloch (Yucatán, Mexico)
Communitism (Athens, Greece), on the occasion of Ron Athey’s and Hermes Spittakos’ premiere of their film Pasiphäe
