Kwame Braun is a
filmmaker and film teacher.
After an early career as a scenic artist in theater and television, he attended New York University’s Graduate Program of Film and Television, graduating in 1988. A year-long Fulbright residence in Ghana generated the material for his first documentaries, passing girl; riverside (1997, left) and Stageshakers! Ghana’s Concert Party Theatre (2001), both of which have screened at international ethnographic film festivals, including the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival in New York City. His subsequent projects arose out of collaborations with teaching colleagues: At UC Santa Barbara he made Video Portraits of Survival, a series of portraits of area Holocaust refugees and survivors, with film scholar Janet Walker; the collection premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2007.
After an early career as a scenic artist in theater and television, he attended New York University’s Graduate Program of Film and Television, graduating in 1988. A year-long Fulbright residence in Ghana generated the material for his first documentaries, passing girl; riverside (1997, left) and Stageshakers! Ghana’s Concert Party Theatre (2001), both of which have screened at international ethnographic film festivals, including the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival in New York City. His subsequent projects arose out of collaborations with teaching colleagues: At UC Santa Barbara he made Video Portraits of Survival, a series of portraits of area Holocaust refugees and survivors, with film scholar Janet Walker; the collection premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2007.
At UC Berkeley, he produced Take 5, 25 short videos to accompany the exhibition Fiat Lux Redux: Ansel Adams and
Clark Kerr (2012), in collaboration with theatre scholar Catherine
Cole, utilizing images from the more than 6000 images that Adams made of the
University of California system for its Centennial Celebration in 1968. His
short video demonstration of Adams’ Zone System has been viewed over 22,000
times on YouTube.
While teaching at
Berkeley, Braun began to create video projections for theater and dance,
starting with Symmetry #8, Jess Curtis/Gravity for Berkeley Dance Project in
2008 (right). Further projects with the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance
Studies included Slaughter City (2010), Measure for Measure (2011),
The
Ruling Class (2013), and Chavez Ravine (2016). In
2014, he designed projections for the premiere of Carson Kreitzer’s Lasso
of Truth at Marin Theatre Company. Since moving to Seattle, he has created
videos for Mary’s Wedding at Portland Center Stage, and By
the Way, Meet Vera Stark at UW’s Meany Studio Theater. A long-term
project is a work-in-progress, Both Eyes Open, a chamber opera by
playwright Philip Kan Gotanda and composer Max Duykers.
Braun sometimes makes video art, as a hobby. This one, Ocean Mosaic, is a smartphone party game, to be played on a grid of smartphones.
Braun sometimes makes video art, as a hobby. This one, Ocean Mosaic, is a smartphone party game, to be played on a grid of smartphones.