Aquarius Rising : Hippie life in California, 1967

This is six parts of a 7 part film made in 1967 documenting the Height Ashbury scene and cultures.

Aquarius Rising Chapter 1: Hippie life in California, 1967 by filmmaker Pierre Sogol. Chapter 1 starts with a lot of statements, then documents a Be-In in Orange County, Various festivals in LA, the Sunset Riots (in 1966?) and the resulting hearings (?). This is Sogol's 1992 edit of the original footage. Note: Pierre Sogol may not be the filmmaker's real name. We are trying to find the filmmaker.  Pierre Sogol 

Filmmaker: Pierre Sogol 

Video Producer: Al Lundell 

Source: Rob Menzies 

Curator: Bruce Damer

A soundtrack playlist for the six parts can be found here

Aquarius Rising Chapter 3: Hippie life in California, 1967 by filmmaker Pierre Sogol. In this episode, the gang goes to the "New Mecca" (San Francisco). Scenes from the Haight, hippie wedding, Summer of Love, Natasha's tale, Oregon LSD trip, Nancy (who reappears frequently in other chapters), July 4th in Golden Gate Park. This is Sogol's 1992 edit of the original 1967 footage.

 
Aquarius Rising Chapter 4: Hippie life in California, 1967 by filmmaker Pierre Sogol. Here we hear from Nancy, and witness open drug dealing on the streets of Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. This is Sogol's 1992 edit of the original 1967 footage.

 
Aquarius Rising Chapter 5: Hippie life in California, 1967 by filmmaker Pierre Sogol. In this episode we have more scenes from OM Commune (Ben Lomond). Next we go to Love Street to Betty's house for a group discussion. Then jump to a public hearing about hippies, end with Stephen on guitar.
 
Aquarius Rising Chapter 7: Hippie life in California, 1967 by filmmaker Pierre Sogol. This last chapter or "appendix" shows various scenes and rolls credits and opinions.

Ira Cohen compilation 'Optredens Ruigoord' 1999

Ira Cohen, the poet, publisher and mystic, at the squatted village of Ruigoord outside Amsterdam in 1999.

Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Cohen lived in Morocco and in New York City in the 1960s, he was in Kathmandu in the 1970s and traveled the world in the 1980s, before returning to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Cohen died of kidney failure on April 25, 2011. Ira Cohen's literary archive now resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

In early 1964, Cohen visited Amsterdam (during the same trip up from Tangier when he arranged for the printing of Gnaoua in Antwerp, Belgium). He befriended writer Simon Vinkenoog, who would later translate many of Cohen's writings into Dutch. Ira was also in Amsterdam in 1974, having visited Paris and the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky with an intention to involve his partner, Petra Vogt, in Jodorowsky's forthcoming film Dune. Unfavorably received, he traveled to Amsterdam, again in the company of Simon Vinkenoog, Louise Landes Levi - poet, musician & translator with whom he would later collaborate on many projects – and Gerard Bellaart (Cold Turkey Press - Rotterdam, publisher of Burroughs, Bailes, Pound et al.), who became Ira's first publisher in the West & a lifelong friend, as was Levi. However his most continuous Amsterdam period began in the spring of 1978. It was then that he met Caroline Gosselin, a French girl who was making and selling life masks at the Melkweg (Milky Way) multimedia center. She and Cohen expanded this into Bandaged Poets - a series of papier-mâché masks of dozens of well-known poets that he subsequently photographed. He also reconnected with Eddie Woods, whom he had first met in Kathmandu in 1976. Woods, who co-founded Ins & Outs Press with Jane Harvey, was preparing to launch Ins & Outs magazine. Cohen's work appeared in every issue and he regularly served as a contributing editor. He performed at the first of Benn Posset's long-running One World Poetry festivals, P78. Cohen (and Gosselin) lived in Amsterdam for the next three years; and even after leaving he made several return visits to the city, often staying for long spells. Ins & Outs Press, which had already published postcards of the Bandaged Poets series, produced three limited-edition Kirke Wilson silkscreen prints of the photographs, including those of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. His film Kings with Straw Mats was also edited, in collaboration with Ira Landgarten, at Ins & Outs. In September 1993 Cohen returned to Amsterdam from New York to participate in a Benn Posset-organized tribute to Burroughs, along with Woods, the American writer William Levy, the German translator & publisher Udo Breger, and others.

Cohen further developed a close association with the artists colony village of Ruigoord (eight miles west of Amsterdam) and is one their very few non-Dutch trophy holders

The Story of The National Black Theatre in Redfern Australia

The National Black Theatre was a theatre company run by a small group of Aboriginal people based in the Sydney suburb of Redfern and which operated from 1972 to 1977. The original concept for the theatre grew out of political struggles, especially the land rights demonstrations, which at the time were being organised by the Black Moratorium Committee. The centre held workshops in modern dancing, tribal dancing, writing for theatre, karate and photography, and provided a venue for new Aboriginal drama. It also ran drama classes under Brian Syron, whose students included Jack Davis, Freddie Reynolds, Maureen Watson, Lillian Crombie, and Hyllus Maris. The company ran the Black Theatre Arts and Culture Centre from 1974 to 1977.