SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASTICITY Some takes on William Greaves

This paper puts African-American film-maker William Greaves's two films Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1971) and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 21/2 (2003) in conversation with each other to consider the possibilities for self-reflexive improvization at two distinct moments, influenced by historical context, medium and generation. Using film footage shot in 1968 (with additional video footage shot with a new crew and returning cast members in Take 21/2), Greaves allows the social ecology of a film in production to generate its own order to the consternation of his crew. In Take 21/2, many aspects of Greaves' instigative process are no longer as mysterious, nor is the politics of production in a post-9/11 world open in the ways it seemed in 1968. Just as the screen-test dialogues in both Takes explore (hetereonormative) reproduction, we consider how the films taken together play with improvisation' - can it be revisited, reproduced, represented and under what conditions? Our discussion's theoretical archive draws on the influences Greaves names in his production notes for the original film.