Judson @ 50

September - December 2012

This Fall, MR celebrates the 50th anniversary of Judson Dance Theater (JDT). MR will mark this historic occasion by engaging artists from a broad range of perspectives, including artists from the original JDT, and exploring the history and perception of JDT amongst the contemporary performance community.  

Workshops
Workshops will be led by June Ekman, Simone Forti, Deborah Hay, and Lisa Nelson. All of these artists have been involved, directly or indirectly, with the work of JDT, and have continued to develop their own work into a distinctive and considered practice that continues to reverberate today. See the workshops section for individual descriptions.

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MR in Residence at the New Museum
Rethinking the Imprint of Judson Dance Theater 50 Years Later
Part of New Museum's RE:NEW RE:PLAY residency series
Co-presented with Movement Research
Through a series of discussions, presentations, artist residencies, and town hall meetings, Movement Research reconsiders the legacy, mythology, and permutations of influence that continue to echo from the occasion of Judson Dance Theater (1962-64). A complete list of residency-related programs will be announced in the fall of 2012. Visit www.movementresearch.org or www.newmuseum.org for more information.
The RE:NEW RE:PLAY residency series is curated by Travis Chamberlain, Public Programs Coordinator at the New Museum.

Final Presentations for Rethinking the Imprint of
Judson Dance Theater Fifty Years Later
December 16 SUN 3pm
location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
$10 New Museum members, $12 General Public
On September 16, Movement Research (MR) solicited questions from the greater MR community with regards to the imprint that Judson Dance Theater (1962-64) continues to make on contemporary performance. Four questions were selected by attendees as focus topics for further investigation by artists nominated to lead a series of week-long performance laboratories and open rehearsals at the New Museum. Tonight, resident artists luciana achugar, AUNTS, Maggie Bennett, The Bureau for the Future of Choreography, Walter Dundervill, Moriah Evans, and Ximena Garnica share the results of their investigations for further consideration in an evening filled with performance, experimentation, and lively debate.

AUNTS
Oct 9 - Oct 13
Proposal: Collective as creative community. Collective as institution. Collective as gathered histories. Collective as aesthetic tradition. Collective as an abstract idea. What is collective and where do we locate it? Can you address the inside/outside of collective in a greater context? Is there an inside/outside of collective? Participating artists: Tei Blow, niv Acosta, Luke George, Megan Byrne, Jen Rosenblit, Michael Newton, Mariana Valencia, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Jessica Ray/Matt Mehlan/Tess Dworman, Colin Nusbaum/Rebeca Medina/Tatyana Tenenbaum, Felicia Ballos/Elisa Santiago/Ray Roy, Bessie McDonough-Thayer, FACADE/FASAD, Stacy Grossfield, Kevin Lovelady, Christine Elmo,Talya Epstein, Emily Wexler, Gillian Walsh, Karl Scholz, Lily Gold
Residency events with AUNTS, open to the public

Moriah Evans and The Bureau for the Future of Choreography
Oct 14 - Oct 15
Proposal: What does it mean to work collectively (cross disciplines or not)? Has the individual become the forefront of present day work? Is the idea of the individual author a myth? Is the idea of working collectively a myth? Participating artists: Alan Calpe, Maggie Cloud, Evelyn Donnelly, Moriah Evans, Kyli Kleven, Stephen May, Stina Nyberg, Sarah Beth Percival, Will Rawls, Ondrej Vidlar
Residency events with Moriah Evans and The Bureau for the Future of Choreography, open to the public

luciana achugar and Ximena Garnica
Nov 21 - Dec 5
Proposal: Where have we taken the neutral/pedestrian body, the ordinary vs. extraordinary body? What are we interested in presenting 'via the body' currently and into the future?  Imagine a future body.
Residency events with luciana achugar, open to the public
Residency events with Ximena Garnica, open to the public

Maggie Bennett and Walter Dundervill
Dec 5 - 13
Proposal: How does dance, with its mutable input and unfixed traces, inform, alter or influence the observer (and promote a reevaluation of the gaze) in visual art contexts? How is this different from performance art and other forms of live art exhibited in those same contexts? Was Judson a strategy?
Residency events with Maggie Bennett and Walter Dundervill, open to the public

Movement Research: Proposals for Rethinking the Imprint of Judson Dance Theater Fifty Years Later
September 16 SUN 3-6pm
location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
FREE
Prior to tonight's program, Movement Research (MR) will solicit questions from the greater MR community regarding the imprint that Judson Dance Theater (1962-64) continues to make on contemporary performance. These questions will be shared with the audience, debated, discussed, and voted upon. Ultimately, four questions will be selected by attendees as focus topics for further investigation by artists nominated to lead a series of week-long performance laboratories and open rehearsals at the New Museum. This event is presented as part of "Movement Research in Residence at the New Museum: Rethinking the Imprint of Judson Dance Theater Fifty Years Later."

A Pluralistic View of the Judson Dance Theater Legacy:
Yvonne Rainer & Aileen Passloff with Wendy Perron
October 28 SUN 3pm
location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
$6 New Museum members, $8 General Public
The divergences between the work of Yvonne Rainer and Aileen Passloff highlight the vastness of the imprint of Judson Dance Theater (1962-64; JDT) while dismantling the myth of a singular Judson aesthetic. Rainer, along with dance artists Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, and others, broke with the conventions of modern dance by exploring task dances and the Dadaist idea of radical juxtaposition. Passloff, along with Jimmy Waring, Fred Herko, Arlene Rothlein, and others, reveled in the full-out dancing and whimsy of modern dance. In this talk, moderated by Wendy Perron, Rainer and Passloff consider the legacy of Judson Dance Theater from the perspectives of their divergent practices.
Some questions that Rainer and Passloff will address: What were you saying "No" to, and what were you saying "Yes" to? In what ways did the '60s affect Judson Dance Theater? How did others in the JDT collective influence your work? What artistic values do you feel JDT has handed down to later generations?

Yvonne Rainer, born in 1934, was a dancer/choreographer, then a filmmaker, then a choreographer/performer again, and an occasional writer. Her work has been seen internationally and rewarded with numerous museum exhibitions, awards, and grants. Three dances--one from 1963 and two of more recent vintage--will be presented at Danspace on November 1-3.

Aileen Passloff's earliest training was at the School of American Ballet, where she met James Waring who was to become a huge influence on her life. Later, she danced with Katherine Litz and studied flamenco in Madrid with Mercedes and Albano. Passloff had a dance company in New York for ten years and has taught dance at Bard College since 1969.

Wendy Perron, editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine, had a thirty-year career as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and writer. She was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company in the 1970s, and led her own dance company in the 1980s and '90s. She has taught at Bennington, Princeton, and NYU, and written for the New York Times, Ballet Review, and the Village Voice.

Mårten Spångberg, and the Judson Imprint in Europe:
Performance and Discussion
November 7 WED 7-10pm
location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
$12 New Museum members and Friends of MR, $15 General Public
Co-presented with Goethe-Institut New York

7pm Performance byMårten Spångberg 
In Powered by Emotion Mårten Spångberg reconstructs the Goldberg Variations, the fantastic dance improvisations by the American dance legend Steve Paxton, and several songs from the Buena Vista Social Club. Paxton himself said, Spångberg's piece actually stands alone, more than being a reconstruction of anything particular. Can one reconstruct an improvisation? This question is not so interesting as the result of Spångberg’s 'translation process' itself.

8:30pm Discussion: The Judson Imprint in European and American Contexts
Spångberg will be joined by artists DD Dorvillier and Sarah Michelson, and will address the following question: How does the imprint of Judson Dance Theater function within the contexts of European and American performance respectively? Artist Claude Wampler will moderate the discussion.

Mårten Spångberg is a performance related artist, choreographer and theoretic living and working in Stockholm. He has been active on stage as performer and creator since 1994, and has since 1999 created his own choreography's from solos to larger scale works, which has toured internationally. He has collaborated with among others Xavier Le Roy, Christine De Smedt/Les Ballets C de la B, Jan Ritsema, Krőőt Juurak. With the architect Tor Lindstrand he initiated International Festival, an interdisciplinary practice merging architecture and choreography/performance. From 1996 - 2005 Spångberg organised and curated festivals in Sweden and internationally. He initiated the network organisation INPEX in 2006. He has thorough experience in teaching both theory and practice. He is since 2008 director for the MA program in choreography at the University of Dance in Stockholm.

"Talking about my generation":
Jill Johnston and the Critic as Subject
NEW DATE ANNOUNCED: December 2 SUN 5pm
location: New Museum, 235 Bowery
$6 New Museum members, $8 General Public
For this program, Critical Correspondence coeditors Aaron Mattocks and Marissa Perel honor the celebrated writer and critic Jill Johnston, whose experimental and personal voice communicated the culture of the interdisciplinary 1960s art scene. In light of Johnston’s innovative contributions to the form, this conversation considers contemporary criticism and the writer as subject. Speakers include David Velasco (editor of Artforum.com) and Claudia La Rocco (founder of thePerformanceClub.org). The event culminates with the next generation of writers reading reviews, essays, and poetry that highlight experimentation with the form of criticism and the subjective voice, including Lauren Grace Bakst, Thom Donovan, Ariel Goldberg, Cassie Peterson and Christine Shan Shan Hou. Critical Correspondence is an online publication of Movement Research.

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MR in Partnership with Anthology Film Archives
Judson Dance Theater's 50th Anniversary: A Selection of Film and Video
location: Anthology Film Archive, 32 2nd Avenue at 2nd St
$10; $8 students/seniors/Friends of MR*; $6 Anthology Members
Movement Research partners with Anthology Film Archives to host a series of screenings, featuring film works created by and featuring members of JDT, collaborations with filmmakers and JDT artists, reconstructions of JDT performances, and rarely seen interviews.

Judson Dance Theater's 50th Anniversary:
A Selection of Film and Video
On July 6, 1962, “A Concert of Dance” was presented at the Judson Memorial Church Meeting Room. This historic event marked the beginning of Judson Dance Theater (JDT) and represented a pivotal moment in dance history. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Judson Dance Theater, often regarded as the origin of post-modern dance. The work produced during this time had a profound effect on the way both audiences and artists conceived of the role of performance and the body in contemporary culture. To celebrate this anniversary, Movement Research partners with Anthology Film Archives to host a series of screenings, featuring film works created by and featuring members of JDT, collaborations with filmmakers and JDT artists, as well as the artists directly influenced by this movement. Anthology and Movement Research also partner with Danspace Project on October 7 to host a screening of reconstructions of JDT performances and rarely seen interviews.

Special thanks to Jed Rapfogel and Andrew Lampert (Anthology Film Archives), Lydia Bell & Judy Hussie-Taylor (Danspace Project), and Wendy Perron.

*Danspace Project members $8 on October 7th

Please note: the films listed for each program represent only some of the works to be screened; visit anthologyfilmarchives.org at the beginning of October for more details.

Judson Dance Theater in Context 1963-1965
A Slide Lecture by Barbara Moore
December 12 WED 7:30pm
location: Anthology Film Archive, 32 2nd Avenue at 2nd St
$10; $8 students/seniors; $6 Anthology Members
Judson Dance Theater is renowned as the seedbed of post-modern dance. The performances and activity that transpired, however, encompassed a wide variety of creative personalities and styles. Non-dancers such as visual artists and musicians were an influential, integrated contingent and active collaborators with trained dancers and each other. Audiences in the close-knit art scene, much smaller and geographically cohesive than it is today, also represented a diverse cross-section of New York's creative communities.

This slide lecture, composed of historic photographs by Peter Moore, mines his remarkable archive for evidence of this inter-connectedness both within Judson Dance Theater itself and in relation to various artistic practices outside of the group proper.

Barbara Moore is an art historian, writer, and manager/curator of the Peter Moore archive. From the beginning she collaborated on organizing the archive’s performance component -- now celebrating its 50th Anniversary parallel to that of JDT -- and created its extensive accompanying research files. She is currently writing a book titled Observing the Avant-Garde: Peter Moore and the Photography of Performance.

October 2, Tuesday, 7pm
YVONNE RAINER’S ‘LIVES OF PERFORMERS’
Judson artists themselves were very involved in various mediums, including film. None more so than Yvonne Rainer, who went from choreographer to filmmaker to choreographer again. This screening features her seminal film of a performance of a rehearsal, LIVES OF PERFORMERS, bridging the gap between her extensive performance work and the film work that was soon to follow.
1972, 90 min, 16mm, b&w.

Plus:
Yvonne Rainer
CONNECTICUT REHEARSAL (OF CONTINUOUS PROJECT – ALTERED DAILY)
1969, 40 min,16mm-to-video, b&w. Cinematographer: Michael Fajans.

October 7, Sunday, 3pm
JUDSON RECONSTRUCTED,
MR in Partnership with Anthology Film Archives and Danspace Project
In 1982, Danspace Project and Bennington College collaborated on “The Judson Project”, a series of performances dedicated to reconstructing Judson-era works with 14 Judson choreographers, including Edward Bhartonn, Remy Charlip, Lucinda Childs, Philip Corner, Brian De Palma, Judith Dunn, Simone Forti, Deborah Hay, Aileen Passloff, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Elaine Summers, and James Waring. The Bennington College Judson Project also filmed interviews with many of the artists that were central to Judson Dance Theater. Danspace Project and Movement Research shared a selection of these rarely-seen reconstructions and interviews in a special afternoon screening.

October 16, Tuesday, 6:45pm
JUDSON: SECOND GENERATION AND BEYOND
Judson had an impact much larger than its three year existence would suggest. Many artists were deeply influenced by the ground broken by JDT, either directly or indirectly. This screening looks at work that bears the imprint of Judson but moves beyond the boundaries of that seminal period.
Richard Rutkowski
THE SPACE IN BACK OF YOU
2011, 65 min, digital video.
This highly visual and visceral documentary investigates the creative life of Suzushi Hanayagi, a powerful, innovative, even radical Japanese dancer and choreographer. For over 20 years she was a close collaborator with and major influence on theater legend Robert Wilson, who referred to her simply as “my teacher”. When Wilson discovers Hanayagi living in an old-age home and suffering from Alzheimer’s, Wilson resolves to work with her once again. Poignant witness to the transition of a life from vibrancy to legacy, this film becomes the final collaboration between a great teacher and her most renowned student.
Steve Paxton
FALL AFTER NEWTON
1987, 23 min, video.
A sweeping look at 11 years of practice of Contact Improvisation by Nancy Stark Smith and Steve Paxton. The progression from its beginnings in 1972 through successive years of performances up to 1983 shows one strand of the development of this multifaceted duet dance form.
CHANNEL Z (live performance excerpt, P.S. 122, 1986)
1986, 20 min, video
Channel Z (1982-1990) was a collaborative improvisation group that initially formed out of a series of dance sessions organized by Robin Feld for people who were teaching Contact Improvisation in New York City. Featuring: Paul Langland, Daniel Lepkoff, Diane Madden, Nina Martin, Randy Warshaw.

November 6, Tuesday, 6:45pm
JUDSON THROUGH THE EYES OF FILMMAKERS
JDT was not exclusively a dance movement. Artists of various disciplines participated in the movement that came to be known as JDT, including filmmakers. This screening highlights some of the many collaborations between Judson artists and film artists who were pushing at the boundaries of both forms.
Films will include:
Jonas Mekas CUP/SAUCER/TWO DANCERS/RADIO (1965/83, 23 min, 16mm)
With Kenneth King & Phoebe Neville.
Simone Forti CLOTHS (fragment) (1967, 5 min, 16mm-to-video)
Camera: Hollis Frampton.
Simone Forti & Anne Tardos STATUES(1977/99, 14 min, video)
Babette Mangolte WATER MOTOR (1978, 7 min, 16mm, b&w

November 6, Tuesday, 9pm
George Manupelli, CRY DR. CHICAGO
1971, 90 minutes, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Lab work by Cineric, Inc., and Trackwise.
In Manupelli’s wonderfully cracked feature, which had fallen almost entirely into oblivion when Anthology was able to revive and preserve it in 2008, Dr. Chicago (played by venerable composer Alvin Lucier) is a sex-change surgeon on the run from the law, forever on his way to Sweden and always out to make a buck. Along for the ride are his faithful companions Sheila Marie (the delightfully zonked-out Mary Ashley) and Steve (brilliantly, and silently, portrayed by the great dancer Steve Paxton, a founding member of Judson Dance Theater). By far one of the most enjoyable feature films to come out of the 1960s underground era.