In January 2019, Movement Research moved into the 122 Cultural Center at 150 First Avenue, our first long-term home dedicated and committed to supporting movement-based experimental artists. For 40 years MR was without its own home—rarely having both office and studio space in the same building, with dancers committedly criss-crossing lower Manhattan and beyond for classes & workshops, rehearsal space, performances, and events. This year, Movement Research is in the final phase of building and making a permanent home for experimental dancers in New York City at the 122CC.
To explore all locations, check out the Movement Research Map! Be sure to check back each week as we update this map with all of the spaces MR has been from 1978 to now!
1978-1983
We Are Building a New Home!
While we look forward to a new future for Movement Research within our first long term home, we are taking a dive into our history and remembering each space we’ve danced, gathered, worked, and held space in since our collective founding in 1978! Each week, we will look back at a different era of the organization. This week we kick off with MR’s first five years, 1978-1983!
In 1978, The School for Movement Research & Construction was founded by a collective of artists. Originating during a time when a number of artist-founded organizations are springing up in the U.S, MR provides its founders with informal environments for dialogue & dancing together, and it evolves into a structure that supports workshops in experimental movement investigations.
Periodic performance presentations began in 1979 and the first benefit performance in April 1979, featuring Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Valda Setterfield & Douglas Dunn, at 40 Irving Place was called “the concert of the decade” by press!
In 1980, the organization incorporated as a not for-profit organization and adopted the name it is now known by across the globe, “Movement Research, Inc”. With this incorporation, the organization established its first all artist Board of Directors: co-founders Wendell Beavers, Beth Goren, Richard Kerry, Daniel Lepkoff, Terence O’Reilly, Mary Overlie, Christina Svane & Board President Cynthia Hedstrom.
The first year of the critically acclaimed Studies Project, held at Danspace Project in St. Mark’s Church and the Triplex Theater, began in 1982. Throughout the 1980s, participants include such artists as Mark Morris, Senta Driver, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Steve Paxton, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Bill Irwin, David Gordon, Rachel Rosenthal, Blondell Cummings, Ethyl Eichelberger, David Cale, Pooh Kaye, Robert Whitman, Kei Takei, Joan Jonas, Dana Reitz, Kenneth King, Jim Self, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Remy Charlip, Meredith Monk & such moderators as Paul Langland, William Harris, Sally Banes, Simone Forti, Mary Overlie & Stephanie Skura. Of the Studies Project, Elizabeth Zimmer writes, “…one of the most illuminating discussions I’ve ever been privileged to witness…You should have been there…”
1983 marks the first year of Open Performance, a monthly series for artists & students to present works-in-progress to small audiences followed by open discussion of the work by audience & artists, originally held in studios at Ethnic Folk Arts at 179 Varick Street and Simone Forti’s Studio at 537 Broadway, now WeisAcres.
Throughout these first five years, there is no Movement Research office, with the organization being run out of the backpacks of the Board of Directors across various studios across lower Manhattan where classes & workshops took place, such as KIVA at 307/309 Canal Street, Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) at 219 W 19th Street, and Performance Space 122 at 150 1st Avenue.
To enlarge the map and view all pinned locations click on the icon to on the upper right hand side!
