This issue is OUT OF PRINT.
EDITORS’ LETTERS
I think it was the performance artist Penny Arcade whom I heard speak about the fact that it takes about thirteen to sixteen years of the next century for the previous century to end. Or she could have said eight or ten or twelve. I’m not sure of the number but of the idea, I am certain. The recent deaths of Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, and Merce Cunningham within the span of thirty-one days is for me nothing short of dance’s end of the twentieth century.
We had planned photographic honors to Jackson and Bausch, but Cunningham’s death came after the journal was ready for print and we felt we did not want to do something quickly. Therefore, we will plan a larger tribute to Cunningham in a subsequent journal. I do wish, though, I had something bright to say, but such overwhelming news doesn’t need my brightness. The lights have been dimmed and it will take some time to find our way through their passing as we did through their living and creating. Yet, no doubt, the work has started on many fronts. And no doubt, we have some good work to do.
All the best,
Trajal
• • •
One of the first things Keith Hennessy did when I approached him about generating content for his cover artist portfolio, was share with me some fan mail he had received from New Yorkers whose mind he had blown with his latest work, Crotch. He sent them in the body of the email with a brief message: “The voice of the audience rarely makes it – and yet it’s been such an important part of my work to attempt this kind of intimate, questioning contact and exchange.”
Effusive praise, deeply felt personal connection, appreciation of his with-it, no-fluff candor, and extended meditations on the meaning and implications of the work were all crowded into emails that read at once like frustrated response papers and deep sighs of relief. Some struggled with how to understand the work; most resigned to the fact that attempts at ‘understanding’ weren’t going to get them anywhere. Keith had stirred something in them. In me, too. And sometimes that’s enough.
Be well.
Tim
