1991 – Dance and environment film shot on location at White Sands, New Mexico and Coral Dunes, Utah and edited following the Hero’s Journey* described by Joseph Campbell, psychologist, researcher, and scholar.

“SandS CycleS is a poetic dance and environment video, a landsite process of creating art for the Earth and ecology.  SandS CycleS is the fruit of two women’s quest through the desert – verabel Call Cluff on camera and Maida Withers as artist/performer.  Images of the Innocent, the Orphan, the Martyr, Caretaker, Warrior, Destroyer, Magician, and the Ruler are woven into the structure of SandS CycleS.”

Selected for showing:  Eco ’92 Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as part of events sponsored by Celebration Artist for Ecology;  Women Make Movies VIII, Washington, DC (1993); IMZ Dance Screen, Lyon, France (1994).

Performance installation for In Winds of Sand stage work performed in Washington, DC, Seoul, Korea, Caracas, Venezuela, others.

*The Hero with a Thousand Faces, book by Joseph Campbell.  “In his lifelong research, Campbell discovered many common patterns running through hero myths and stories from around the world.  Years of research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost every hero-quest goes through (no matter what culture the myth is a part of).  He calls this common structure “the monomyth.”

What the press is saying

"... demonstrates Withers' emphasis on the earth as healthy... She insists that knowledge resides in nature, and that it is up to us find ways to receive it. Artistic energy can be a powerful facilitator. " Amy Rosenthal- Art in Progress