Critical Correspondence

MRPJ#27/Then and Now, Section A: Extras

Paul Langland: You and I are both feeling feisty about having the next artistic shift, because we may be in a late post-modern era, but we’re not sure, because it’s too soon to tell, and we may not even realize it’s happening, when it happens, for a while. Yvonne Rainer said of the advent of post-modernism in dance, “The ground shifted and we were standing on it.” So there’s a tipping point that happens, and all of a sudden it shifts and everyone notices it, rather than necessarily willfully creating it. — from a conversation between Paul Langland and Clarinda Mac Low.

These epic double issues commemorating MR’s first 25 years — PJs 27 and 28 — are an incredible window not only into the history of the organization, but to the moment these anniversary journals were conceived and created. They include an array of interviews with almost all MR previous Directors and the artists who brought it into being. There are also notes from artists who were (and many continue to be) intensively involved with the organization in 2004 and a view into how change becomes part and parcel of the organization’s mission and nature. From Part A, we highlight a brief piece, with some manifesto-like tone, from Sally Silvers, where these tradition and evolution trends both find resonance, and where the political foundation of an aesthetic project finds clear expression. From Section B, we chose Ann Cooper Albright’s piece, Researching Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality, because it seems to question some of the answers Sally gives in hers. Besides promoting a keen and necessary critical perspective, the issues raised by Cooper Albright ring relevant still today, and we think have been echoed through MR’s organizational life, both internally and externally.

Wendell Beavers: Danny Lepkoff and I talked about this. We talked about the needs of people who are in their fifties, and have been dancing since the seventies, how what they want is different from other generations. Why doesn’t each generation–whether it’s the late forties, fifties, or sixties, each with their own incredible experiences–why don’t they start their own Movement Research? Why not do it all over again with a whole new set of reasons? Our time was bizarre because we were working in a community in which we were all the same age, basically. The students were the same age as the teachers. We weren’t teaching younger students. We were all in our twenties. I remember when it started, when real students would show up, it was actually offensive in a way. It was like, ‘what is this demand from these kids?’ MR was quite a different idea; it was community in a looser sense. — from a conversation between Wendell Beavers and Clarinda Mac Low