Artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas has earned a reputation as one of the leading lights in experimental filmmaking, particularly in his fusion of video and dance, and using live video as an improvisational medium. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1949, Atlas was a passionate movie fan as a child, and when he moved to New York at the age of 20, he expanded his tastes from glossy Hollywood fare to classic silent films, European cinema, and the work of contemporary experimental directors. Atlas began making Super 8 films in 1970, and he landed a job as a stage manager with the company of celebrated dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham. Cunningham and Atlas became collaborators, with Atlas creating Walkaround Time, a film adapted from one of Cunningham's dance pieces. As video technology became more accessible in the mid-'70s, Atlas began creating video pieces which didn't merely document Cunningham's dance pieces but used the medium to interact with the performances, as Cunningham choreographed pieces with two-dimensional visual recordings in mind; Blue Studio: Five Segments, created in 1976 and 1977, would be recognized as one of their landmark works. In addition to his projects with Cunningham, Atlas also began working with video installations, creating images to be displayed on monitors in a fixed environment, as well as multi-media presentations, costume design, lighting design, and performance art. Along with Cunningham, Atlas' collaborators include Michael Clark, John Kelly, New Humans, and Marina Abramovic. In 2004, Atlas created a performance piece Turning in collaboration with Antony Hegarty and his group Antony and the Johnsons; the piece, a celebration of the beauty and resilience of women, featured video projections that were manipulated in real time by Atlas during a concert performance by the group. The Turning show toured Europe in 2006, and Atlas created a documentary that documented a live performance in London, as well as offering a look at the creation of the show and interviews with the "beauties" as they discussed their struggles with self-image and sexual identity. The Turning documentary was released on DVD in 2014, accompanied an audio recording of the London concert. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi