Movement Research Annual Town Hall Meeting

Movement Research in Residence at the New Museum:

Proposals for Rethinking the Imprint of Judson Dance Theater Fifty Years Later

September 16, 2012, at the New Museum

This event was moderated by Carla Peterson

Prior to tonight's program, Movement Research (MR) solicited questions from the greater MR community regardign the imprint that Judson Dance Theater (1962-1964) continues to make on contemporary performance. These questions were shared with the audience, debated, discusssed, and voted upon. Ultimately, 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. This event was presented as part of "Movement Research in Residence at the New Museum: Rethinking the Imprint of Judson Dance Theater Fifty Years Later."

MR 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

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).

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 addressed: 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?

This event took place on October 28, 2012 as part of New Museum’s RE:NEW RE:PLAY residency series, co-presented with Movement Research. The RE:NEW RE:PLAY residency series is curated by Travis Chamberlain, Public Programs Coordinator at the New Museum.

Photo: Yvonne Rainer, Wendy Perron, and Aileen Passloff, by Travis Chamberlain

Schneemann, Perel, 7.06.12

This is a Movement Research Studies Project titled “Dance and the Occupy Movement,” organized by Abigail Levine. Panelists included Barbara Browning, Paloma McGregor, Clarinda MacLow, Edisa Weeks, and Daniel Lang-Levitsky. This event took place at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, January 25, 2012.

An excerpt from the Movement Research Festival Spring Brochure 2011 reads: “Exploring an expanded notion of choreography and how it is related to our social and political organization and discovery of ourselves as individuals working within a temporary collective… circling and questioning around ideas of a moving community.”

The New York City General Assembly Declaration of the Occupation reads, “Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.”

Participants in this Movement Research Studies Project on the topic of dance and Occupy Wall Street discussed several questions in an open conversation about the creative political movement. What are the points of contact between experimental, contemporary dance and the Occupy Movement? As spatial and embodied practice? As social investigation and organization? As improvisation and movement? As agents of change? How do and might these moving communities interact? How do we approach (public and private) space in New York City?

Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community.

This is a movement research studies project titled “Curatorial approaches to presenting Time-Based Art,” Moderated by Sam Miller (Founder, ICPP and President, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council). Panelists included Doryun Chong (Faculty, ICPP and Curator, MoMA) Judy Hussie-Taylor (Faculty, ICPP and Executive Director, Danspace Project), Jaamil Kosoko (Student, ICPP and Artist based in Philadelphia), and Ben Pryor (Student, ICPP and Curator/Producer based in New York). This event took place at Gibney Dance Center, January 18, 2012.

Faculty and students from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (or the ICPP) at Wesleyan University engaged in a discussion about curatorial approaches to presenting time-based art. Founded in 2010, the ICPP brings together artists, curators, scholars, presenters and cultural leaders for an intensive, nine-month, low-residency academic program with instructors from Wesleyan, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Danspace Project, and the Walker Art Center. 

Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community.

For more information about the ICPP program and how to apply, please visit www.wesleyan.edu/icpp.