Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done highlights the ongoing significance of the history of Judson Dance Theater, beginning with the workshops and classes led by Anna Halprin, Robert Ellis Dunn, and James Waring and exploring the influence of other figures working downtown such as Simone Forti and Andy Warhol, as well as venues for collective action like Judson Gallery and the Living Theatre. Through live performance and some 300 objects including film, photographic documentation, sculptural objects, scores, music, poetry, architectural drawings, and archival material, the exhibition celebrates the group’s multidisciplinary and collaborative ethos as well as the range of its participants. The Work Is Never Done includes a gallery exhibition, a print publication, and an ambitious performance program in the Museum’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium.
The exhibition is organized by Ana Janevski, Curator, and Thomas J. Lax, Associate Curator, with Martha Joseph, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.
The installation includes works ranging from Brown’s 1966 Homemade - in which she straps a projector onto her back, throwing a film onto the wall, floor, and ceiling in synchronization with her live performance - to a demonstration of phrase material from her 1979 Glacial Decoy, her first of several large-scale theatrical works. Moving images featured prominently in Brown’s work; she used video as a preparatory tool for her choreography and collaborated with filmmakers such as Babette Mangolte, Elaine Summers, Robert Whitman, and Jud Yalkut. The installation traverses Brown’s early practice, placing her highly organized “Accumulation” dances - in which simple gestures accrue through repeated iterations - in relation to the physical abandon she displays in Water Motor (1978), a work Brown described as “unpredictable, personal, articulate, dense, changeful, wild assed.”
This event accompanies the Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done exhibit.
Trisha Brown Dance Company performs excerpts from Working Title, (1985) as part of the ELSIE MANAGEMENT DANCE SHOWCASES at APAP.
Trisha Brown: In Plain Site pairs indoor and outdoor sites with select pieces from Brown’s repertory. Each work is restaged in a dynamic relationship to the setting, amplifying Trisha Brown’s effortless affinity for naturalizing movement to the physical environment. In parks, museums, and public squares, among other sites, audiences are engaged in the intimate, up-close experience of Brown’s choreography through specially chosen excerpts from the repertory.
Selections from our current proscenium repertory L’Amour au théâtre (2009), Geometry of Quiet (2002), and Groove and Countermove (2000).
Selections from our current proscenium repertory L’Amour au théâtre (2009), Geometry of Quiet (2002), and Groove and Countermove (2000).