from the extremities such as leg extensions and back arches. Dancers in the documentary film Talley Beatty: Conversations with Contemporary Masters of American Modern Dance state that his choreography is very physically demanding and technically challenging and that in order to dance in one of his works a strong knowledge in at least four different disciplines, including ballet and modern dance, is needed. Career Early career In the 1930s and 1940s, black modern dancers began breaking down racial barriers and entering the concert dance space. Among them was Katherine Dunham who took a young Talley Beatty under her wing and gave him his first performance opportunities in her company. In 1931, Beatty performed with Dunham’s company at “The First Negro Dance Recital in America,” organized by Edna Guy. Beatty also had a prolific career, for a black dancer of the time, in TV. Like all black dancers at the time, Beatty's early career was marked by immense racial prejudice. In the documentary Free to Dance: The African American Presence in Modern Dance, Beatty is asked to discuss the hardships in his early television career. He comments, saying: "I got a lot of TV work at that time. But when TV became commercial, it was just like this: people who were dancing with me, who were white, got the jobs. The only time I worked in TV and got splendid reviews was before it began to really pay. And that line of demarcation. I'd see these whole phrases of my work being done everywhere, on Broadway, television, on various companies, I was flattered. Not flattered, but it was interesting to me. And they took the parts of the work that were really my innards."Despite the immense barriers to entry for black dancers, Beatty had a very successful career for a black dancer of his time. He performed in the Broadway show Cabin in the Sky (1940). Beatty appeared in the films Carnival of Rhythm (1940) and Stormy Weather (1943). He also performed in Showboat (1946) alongside Pearl Primus, Joe Nash, and Alma Sutton, and later in Inside USA (1948). He performed Blackface (1947) with Ballet Society, an early Balanchine company. A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) Maya Deren is known as one of the most influential experimental filmmakers of the 20th century. Deren was greatly influenced by Katherine Dunham, who was studying Haitian dance styles around the same time Deren