hAiRCHITECTURE is a collective filmmaking project that originated in the Research Film Studio course, Environmental Film Studies: Home Beyond Good and Evil. This musical documentary investigates the vernacular art of hair weaving as practiced in the local hairdressing salon in Princeton run by Sintelle Taylor, a founder of Stepping Stone and entrepreneur working with celebrity stylist Godfrey Fitzgerald. Godfrey has been the stylistic designer of Beyonce’s music videos since ‘Lemonade’. Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ is deeply inspired by Julie Dash’s classic film Daughters of the Dust, a film studied in Environmental Film Studies. Sintelle and Godfrey have followed the aesthetics of the costume and hair design of the film in their work for the Lemonade music videos.
The main storyline of the documentary will be the making of a music video by the Princeton Research Film Studio students by weaving matching clips from the Julie Dash film and the Beyonce videos together with their own version of the same scenes reenacted on the Princeton campus. Godfrey and Sintelle will be the stylists on the Princeton set. While Godfrey and his crew braid, weave, and style the Princeton students’ hair for the Research Film Studio music video, the students will interview them about this ancient art. Other Princeton experts, such as art historians, engineers and historians, will be also speak about the art of hair braiding and hair-design as architecture.
