milford Graves Full Mantis (documentary )

bar run by the flying woodlouse

Presented by: moved by sound

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0	LEWES: All Saints Centre
P	Friday 13th September, 2024
N	7:00pm

Event information

milford Graves: Percussionist, professor, free-jazz drummer, acupuncturist, herbalist, independent electro-cardiologist, martial artist, sculptor—Milford Graves doesn’t settle down and he doesn’t stick to one thing. Rather, these different identities all feed into this autodidact and polymath’s interest in the body and the human heart, as well the natural world’s relationship with them. Graves the man, the musician, his lifestyle, and his unwavering beliefs are the subject of Jake Meginsky and co-director Neil Young’s film.

“Full Mantis” mean exactly? It has to do with one of the anecdotes Graves tells. He wanted to learn the praying mantis technique from an instructor in Chinatown. But the instructor didn’t teach certain techniques to non-Chinese people. “So I went to the best teacher; I went to the praying mantis himself. And that was better than any human could teach me, because if you go through another human, he may have a limitation. Maybe he can’t move a certain way? If he can’t move a certain way, then that means I’m not going to get full mantis. I’m going to get only a little bit of the mantis.” Meginsky and Young go to the source for their doc, who himself has made a life’s work of finding the source for his music.