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Danspace Project Presents
An Evening with Lucinda Childs
September 17, 2012 [Mon] 7pm
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Two Evenings with Carolee Schneemann
September 21 & 22, 2012 [Fri & Sat] 8pm
Admission: 8 (2 Danspace members)
Part of PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now
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Danspace Project presents two special limited engagements with Lucinda Childs (September 17) and Carolee Schneemann (September 21 & 22). These evenings are part of PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Judson Dance Theater.
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An Evening with Lucinda Childs
September 17, 2012 [Mon] 7pm
SPECIAL UPDATE: Childs will open this evening with a rare performance of an excerpt from her first solo,Pastime (1963).
At the fourth Concert of Dance at Judson Church, Lucinda Childs performed Pastime, a solo in three parts, which Sally Banes has described as "a succinct statement involving three different angles of viewing the body and its movements." The work was set to water sounds recorded in a kitchen sink by composer Philip Corner. In one section of Pastime, Childs sat on stage inside of a bag. Childs will begin this special evening by performing an excerpt from Pastime (1963), and Screen (Premiere: March 12, 1965, Judson Memorial Church), and leads a discussion of her Judson-era work.
A champion of both Minimalism and Post-Modernism, Childs' approach to choreography coupled with her classical training has led her on a diverse and prolific career path. In a 2000 interview in The New York Times, Childs explained: "I never gave up the classical training, but I also committed myself totally to the Judson experience, working outside the dance vocabulary with objects and texts and anything but dance steps. In the morning, you'd go to ballet class and in the afternoon you'd carry mattresses and that kind of thing.''
Childs has choreographed for Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), which will return to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in September. Her collaboration with Glass and artist Sol LeWitt onDANCE (1979) was recently reprised and toured. Childs has also been commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet, Martha Graham Company, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
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Lucinda Childs graduated as a dance major from Sarah Lawrence College in 1962 (where she studied with Judith Dunn and Bessie Schönberg) and then studied at the Merce Cunningham studio. She began her professional career as a choreographer and performer in 1963 as an original member of the Judson Dance Theater in New York. After forming her own dance company in 1973, Ms. Childs collaborated with Robert Wilson and Philip Glass on the opera Einstein on the Beach, participating as a lead performer and choreographer, she also participated in the revivals of the opera in 1984,1992 and 2007, and is currently scheduled for involvement in the third revival of the opera at Lincoln Center, in November 2009. During 1977-78, Ms. Childs performed opposite Wilson, in his two-act play I Was Sitting On My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating, and in 1987-88, in Wilson's production of Heiner Muller's Quartett at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1996-97 Childs appeared in Wilson's production of La Maladie de la Mort by Marguerite Duras, opposite French actor Michel Piccoli. Since 1979, Ms. Childs has collaborated with a number of composers and designers, including John Adams and Frank Gehry, on a series of large-scale productions. Among these projects was Dance, choreographed in 1979 with music by Philip Glass, and a film/decor by Sol LeWitt, for which Ms. Childs was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since 1981, Ms. Childs has received a number of commissions from major ballet companies; these include the Paris Opéra Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet, Lyon Opéra Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Geneva Opera Ballet, Ballet du l'Opéra du Rhin, the Boston Ballet, and the Bayerisches Staatsballett of Munich. In 2003, Ms Childs choreographed Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, for the Geneva Opera Ballet and revived Concerto with music by Henry Gorecki, which was choreographed for her own company in 1993. In 2003, she also choreographed Opus One, a new solo for Mikhail Baryshnikov with music by Alban Berg, and then in 2004 she choreographed Bartok's Mandarin Merveilleux for the Ballet de l'Opéra du Rhin. In 2005, Ms. Childs choreographed a Ten Part Suite for the Boston Ballet with music by Arcangelo Corelli, which premiered at the Wang Center in Boston. In April 2007, The Bayerisches Staats Ballett in Munich revived Chamber Symphony, where it premiered in 1994, with music by John Adams. That same year she also appeared in Robert Wilson's production of Bach's Passion of Saint John at the Théâtre de Chatelet in Paris, before returning to the Opéra du Rhin to choreograph and direct Stravinsky's Le Rossignol and Oedipus Rex. Since 1992, Ms. Childs has worked extensively in the domain of opera, including Luc Bondy's production of Richard Strauss's Salome, which she choreographed for the Salzburg Festival, and in 1999, and then later revived for La Scala in Milan in March, 2007. In 1995 she choreographed Bondy's production of Verdi's Macbeth for the Scottish Opera, and Peter Stein's De Nederlandse Opera's production of Moise et Aron. That same year Ms. Childs directed her first opera, Mozart's Zaide, for La Monnaie in Brussels. In 2001, Childs choreographed the Los Angeles Opera's production of Wagner's Lohengrin, conducted by Kent Nagano. In 2002, Ms. Childs directed Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice for the Scottish Opera and in 2003, Ms. Childs was invited to return to Los Angeles Opera to choreograph and direct a new production of Orfeo ed Euridice. Ms. Childs also choreographed Roland Aeschlimann's production of Wagner's Parsifal, which premiered at the Grand Theatre de Genève in 2004, and most recently she choreographed John Adams new opera, Doctor Atomic, directed by Peter Sellars, which premiered in 2005 with the San Francisco Opera, was later revived by the Holland Festival in June 2007, and recently appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in December 2007. In 2004 Ms. Childs was appointed by the French Government to the rank of Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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Two Evenings with Carolee Schneemann
Films and Performance
September 21 & 22, 2012 [Fri & Sat] 8pm
Over two nights, pioneering multidisciplinary artist Carolee Schneemann will present newly edited archival films interspersed with live performance work. Schneeman, a recent recipient of a 2012 Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts, has made inarguable contributions to the discourse of body, sexuality, and gender through her early performance and film work.
During this evening, Schneemann will screen three of her groundbreaking works. Meat Joy (1964), once described by Scheemann as "flesh jubilation," featured performers ecstatically brandishing raw meats, poultry, and fish. Writes Schneemann, "Meat Joy has the character of an erotic rite: excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chickens, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, rope brushes, paper scrap. It's propulsion is toward the ecstatic-- shifting and turning between tenderness, wilderness, precision, abandon: qualities which could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent."
Snows (1967) was built, according to Scheemann herself, "out of my anger, outrage, fury and sorrow for the Vietnamese. The performance contained five films whose related content triggered juxtaposition of a winter environment and Vietnam atrocity images." Like Snows, Water Light/Water Needle (1966), an aerial performance first realized at St. Mark's Church in 1966, and later reconstructed for film in a grove of trees, also references the Vietnam War. Originally conceived for the canal at San Marco in Venice, eight performers rigged to ropes move to Scheemann's score of randomized encounter.
Lateral Splay, a work for twelve to fifteen runners originally performed at the 13th Concert of Dance at Judson Church in 1963 will be performed by a dynamic group of New York City-based performers and choreographers including: Effie Bowen, Andy Chapman, Tess Dworman, Devynn Emory, Lily Gold, Gabriella Hiatt, Megan Kendzior, Roxanne Kidd, Adrienne Lee, Benn Rasmussen, Arturo Vidich, Gillian Walsh, and Kathy Wasik.
Schneemann will be on hand to introduce each film and performance.
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Carolee Schneemann is a multidisciplinary artist. The history of her work is characterized by research into archaic visual traditions, pleasure wrested from suppressive taboos, the body of the artist in dynamic relationship with the social body.Painting, photography, performance art and installation works shown at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and most recently in a retrospective at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York entitled "Up To And Including Her Limits". Film and video retrospectives Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Film Theatre, London; Whitney Museum, NY; San Francisco Cinematheque; Anthology Film Archives, NYC.She has taught at many institutions including New York University, California Institute of the Arts, Bard College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recipient of a 1999 Art Pace International Artist Residency, San Antonio, Texas; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (1997, 1998); 1993 Guggenheim Fellowship; Gottlieb Foundation Grant; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME. Lifetime Achievement Award, College Art Association, 2000.Schneemann has published widely; books include Cezanne, She Was A Great Painter (1976), Early and Recent Work (1983); More Than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (1979, 1997). Forthcoming publications include Imaging Her Erotics, from MIT Press. A selection of her letters edited by Kristine Stiles is also forthcoming.
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Funding:
The creation of 40 Dancers do 40 Dances for the Dancers was made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project 2012-13 Commissioning Initiative, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 40 Dancers do 40 Dances for the Dancers was also created, in part, while in residence at Mount Tremper Arts as a project of the New York State DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program.
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LOCATION: Unless otherwise noted, all performances and events take place at Danspace Project in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street, New York, NY 10003.
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PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now
Fifty years after the first Concert of Dance at Judson Church in 1962, Judson's radical experiments are still influencing the way artists work today. Many artists who participated in the more than 200 experimental evenings from 1962-1966 are still making, performing, exhibiting, and touring their work. Their generative cross-disciplinary experiments gave rise to some of the most important movements of the 1960s and 1970s and still inspire younger generations in multiple disciplines to take artistic risks.
"Judson Now is not a comprehensive survey but rather a snapshot of Judson's influence in the current moment. Judson Dance Theater's mythic reach is vast, its artists were many, its experiments were multidisciplinary, and the anarchic energy and vision spilled out of the Judson Church into lofts, theaters, churches, and even to other cities," writes Hussie-Taylor. "There is no one narrative to sum up Judson and this generative period in downtown New York."
Judson Now takes place over 10 weeks. Public events include performances, discussions, panels, film showings, and artists' residencies. Danspace Project will publish a catalogue co-edited by Jenn Joy and Judy Hussie-Taylor featuring archival and contemporary images, interviews, and essays.
PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now has been organized by Hussie-Taylor with assistance from a research team comprised of Jenn Joy, Huffa Frobes-Cross, Lydia Bell, Judith Walker, and Adrienne Rooney. Wendy Perron has served as artistic advisor. Judson Now coincides with and complements other Judson 50th Anniversary events throughout New York City, including workshops and presentations presented by Movement Research.
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FUNDING FOR PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now
Danspace Project's PLATFORM program is a series of guest artist-curated programs that are part of the Choreographic Center Without Walls (CW²). As a framework for Danspace's presentations and commissions, CW² aims to examine and discover ways of providing context, curatorial support, and space for choreographers and their works. The CW² and its PLATFORM series receives major support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, this fall's PLATFORM 2012: Judson Now has received lead funding from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Special thanks to all our space and presentation partners: Abrons Arts Center, Barnard College, Gibney Dance Center, Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts, Mount Tremper Arts, Movement Research, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Performa, and The Poetry Project.
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About Danspace Project
Danspace Project presents new work in dance, supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences.
Now in its fourth decade, Danspace Project has supported a vital community of contemporary dance artists in an environment unlike any other in the United States. Located in the historic St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Danspace shares its facility with the Church, The Poetry Project, and The Incubator Arts Project. Danspace Project's Commissioning Initiative has commissioned over 430 new works since its inception in 1994.
Danspace Project's Choreographic Center Without Walls (CW²) provides context for audiences and increased support for artists. Danspace Project's presentation programs (including Platforms, FOOD FOR THOUGHT, Draftwork), Commissioning Initiative, residencies, guest artist curators, and contextualizing activities and materials are core components of CW² that offer a responsive framework for artists' works. Since 2010, we have commissioned 67 emerging and established artists, produced six guest-curated Platforms, published six print catalogues and four e-books, launched the Conversations Without Walls series, and explored models for public discourse and residencies.
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Danspace Project is located in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery | 131 East 10th Street, New York, NY 10003
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