Ralph Lemon’s An All Day Event: The End, Danspace Project, New York, 2012. Photo: Ian Douglas

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A dialogue between Judy Hussie-­Taylor and Ralph Lemon

judy hussie-taylor­ Very early at Danspace meant because I had worked for a couple years Project I decided to start a series of Platforms. on trying to develop the ica project before I actually borrowed that word from Okwui it fell apart. My idea of what curating work Enwezor’s Documenta 11 in 2002, where he had might mean evolved, you know, for someone Platforms that began eighteen months before the who’s coming from a more choreographic cre- exhibition in Kassel, Germany. He helped me to ative point of view. I had an idea of how that think about the possibilities of curatorial design work relates to something that could be con- and of bursting it out of one solo geography. I saw sidered parallel to or really different from my Danspace Project Platforms as exhibitions that choreographic work, and I think for I Get Lost, unfold over time and as being predicated on the I made it quite parallel. It was very interesting, idea of activating a series of relationships between the way this resonated with some ideas that I artists, curators, choreographers — myself and was working through at the time and with my others at Danspace Project — who were already other particular project I was working on at working informally and who were having a pri- that time, which was called How Can You Stay vate discourse around the work rather than a in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? It public discourse. Curating the Platforms was an was really about the body getting lost. attempt to activate and formalize those relation- ships, and to create a public context for more of the What was of interest to me with that series, at least work that was being made. You were the first per- initially, was to approach an artist’s thinking as son I approached among four guest artist curators, a way of curating. Rather than create a festival and you curated the first Platform. Would you talk or theme, it was of interest to me to create events about your thoughts around developing the idea for as an inquiry, as a place to ask questions and not that Platform, which was called I Get Lost? have to have a final, festival-­like spectacle. How did your artistic research relate to the Platform ralph lemon I had been asked to do a cura- research? With I Get Lost, we had talked about torial idea a few years before your invitation, words such as ecstasy and transcendence and trans- which was the first time I had been asked formation — to take on the role of a curator. I was with a project at the Institute of Contemporary Arts And trance, another big theme in our discus- (ica) in Boston, which then transformed sions about practice — at least with what I was many years later into the Some sweet day proj- doing in my own work — and about how that ect at moma. So when you asked me to curate could get translated. And, of course, I had just the Platform, I had an inkling of what that come from working with my group, where

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we were working with the inebriated body, It surprised me that you were surprised. Something doing research with the body being drunk that interests me as a curator, which I think I’ve and stoned, and for me, it was thinking about learned from artists like you, is putting out an idea what is the sort of modern or post-­postmodern or proposal, and I almost always expect “No, but . . .” translation of trance. You can think of cul- as the answer. I’m used to that. tures that are finding ways to be inhabited I will speak for the field, which is prob- by another kind of spiritual world through ably not a good idea, but I will. Choreog- inebriation, which I had experienced before raphers by nature are very self-­involved in making this work or researching it, but I knew their, you know, trappings, and I’m one of that was not going to be our experience. So, them. I think you have an idea, you work it the question was, how to really take on and be to death, and even when you’re trying to be rigorous about a different kind of conscious- inclusive, you’re — at least this was the case ness, you know? In getting lost or being lost or for me — thinking that everyone you’re invit- being inhabited by something else beyond you ing into a process, people who make com- and beyond the kind of rigid everyday ideas pletely, violently different work than you do, or structures. It was philosophical, and I just would somehow fit into the parameters of felt like these were ideas and questions that I your thinking about it. And it is a nice sur- would ask some choreographers, whose work prise that after you open up that question, you I really admired at the time, to take on. Then have to give it away. You try to maintain some we could have this kind of physical conversa- boundaries, you know, which then becomes the tion around it, and that was the best part of collaboration, with you as someone holding that project for me: the handing over of the the container, do you know? But you do just question. have to let it go and see what happens, which I was less interested in, or concerned is interesting. about, the results. I mean, I wanted it to go well. But I wanted everyone to have a really A shared space of vulnerability. interesting time. Which is really interesting. You had originally asked just Djédjé Djédjé Ger- vais to participate, but he was not able to; he was I want to talk about a hybrid curatorial practice, injured. Souleymane Badolo then had an interest- which is what I think you are engaging in, and I ing response to your proposal about this question of think that’s what I am doing too with the Plat- getting lost. forms. As curators, we do share risk and vulner- ability — and not to the same degree — with the Yeah, he said, I’m not interested in getting artist or choreographer. In inviting another artist lost via my cultural background. Because so to participate, there is a different kind of respon- much is getting lost, I’m interested in find- sibility or relationship, and I just want to ask you ing something or recovering or maintaining about that sense of responsibility to the artist you’ve something, which I thought was a nice slap asked to be a part of it. in the face and a really good lesson about the curatorial role. What you think you’re design- I feel there are obvious evolutionary layers to ing is really not what you’re designing because that. First of all, it’s been very clear to me that you’re working with other people, right? I asked people I really admire, right? Then there is that partial letting go and trusting, and then, once they accept the invitation, I

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feel like my job is to protect. Because I’m an This is true of an institution like Danspace, but Ralph Lemon’s interface, right? I’m in the middle of them probably very different with an institution like Geography, Yale Repertory Theatre, and some institution, which has the space moma. Or is this same sort of protection, the same New Haven, 1997. and the money and is going to make it hap- values, the same instincts there, but played out Photo: pen. My job is to get the institution every- differently? T. Charles Erickson thing that it wants, within reason, and to The artist is going to come in and ask for be diplomatic about that. But I feel like my everything, right? But they can’t get every- charge is the artist, so I become a representa- thing they want at moma. So it’s a matter of tive of them and their needs. And then there’s how you reconcile that. I suppose this is what that whole miasma of the work getting done, an artist does anyway, even if they don’t have which is a rugged kind of road, it seems — very a curator as an interface. But as an artist, and bumpy — and dealing with them and their perhaps as a curator, I think I’ve gone into it desires, as well as the institution. with maybe a little more expectation that this has to be done really well. I mean I have to find

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some sort of compromise so it gets created, Yeah, a living room in a church. One thing I talk right? And, so once all that’s done and there’s about is that the etymology of the word curate the event itself, then I’m no longer a curator; refers to one who cares for the souls of others, so I I’m an audience member. I’m just watching, think about curate and care when you’re talking and I’m watching the thing being watched. about this sense of caring for the audience. I’ve And watching the thing be analyzed, and been thinking about how to take care of this web liked or not liked, and getting feedback. I just of relationships. This series of relationships that it’s get all this stuff that I usually don’t get as an our job to care for gets at how a curator provides the artist, right? I’m really involved in the work, necessary feedback loop for the artist. and it’s like I have some kind of ghostly own- And whose job is that? Again, I speak for ership of it, too. So this weird thing comes many laborers of I know, who obfus- up: these moments of odd disappointment cate or pretend that they don’t want to have a or surprise or gratitude and excitement — relationship to the audience or that it doesn’t you know, a wild range of emotions that are matter — even though it does. I’ve been one of very interesting and unfamiliar. those people for many years, proudly. But as I undertake more and more of this curatorial The point I just want to tease out here — because work, I’m able to see the violence — and it may it’s something I’m obsessed with — is this dynamic be a useful violence, I think — of that kind of watching, the work and watching others as they relationship to an audience. Case in point: we experience work. It is interesting that you would were doing Some sweet day, during the time of discover that as a curator you are a witness, where Sarah Michelson’s event in the Atrium Space, you’re holding the integrity of the artist, but the and it was a couple of days before there was integrity of the audience as well. And you’re watch- going to be an audience. I remember going up ing the energetic shifts in the audience’s watching, to her — we’re really good friends — and say- the restlessness, or the rapt attention. Watching the ing, “Well, Sarah, question to you about — ” varied qualities of attention is something I do as a because she had pretty much created a stage curator. It is my practice. I wonder whether other that took up the whole Atrium, and there curators, in other fields, experience this, or if it’s the was only a little space where an audience special province of the performance curator. could sit that wasn’t going to hold all of the Well, I remember at Danspace, the first night people that were going to show up. I’d been we were showing Souleymane Badolo and thinking about this for days or months. So Judith Sánchez Ruíz, that I found myself no when I had the opportunity to confront her longer being just the caretaker of the arts; I about it kindly, it was really interesting: it became the caretaker of the audience as well. was a moment in which she was not going to And it was certain people, right? People I deal with that question. That was interesting knew or friends, and I felt like I had to nav- because this artist does not care, or they care igate them into the space to a good place to but in a private place that I can’t penetrate, so watch the work. So it’s this larger caring that what do I do? That was interesting, you know, was sort of beautiful, very holistic and total, in a space that’s not really mine, right? do you know? It was much harder to do at moma because it was much more anonymous, So what did you do? more out of my hands, and a little bigger than Well, I just thought, okay, I can take this on I felt capable of handling. But, you know, by myself. I am alone, right? So it felt like it Danspace is like a living room. was not like a collaboration, but there was an

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interesting kind of fissure: there’s Sarah and them to know about it. How do we do that? her work, and there’s me trying to help navi- So she hands you that problem, what do you gate people to see it the way I think it should do? You come back and you say, “Well, how be seen. But I had no idea how she really about we let the right people see it to then go wanted it seen or cared about it being seen. tell others what happens? Or the wrong peo- And this was a moment when I discovered ple, who are going to share what happened in how complex the job is really, do you know? an unreliable way? Which would you want?” There is that inherent difference in the doing So I think part of the job of a curator is to and the watching of the doing. add some reasoning to the work, that on some level has a very large element of meaningless- I understand it as a dramaturgical function ness to it, you know? Giving it some kind of sometimes, especially in a situation like that. We context. Because I think, as artists, we really deal with this a lot at Danspace Project, where just want to be in the studio. And, of course, the process is about getting deeper into the inten- what drives that is that at some point, you tion behind an artist’s choices and about whether know, the whole Bachelard thing, you know, an artist can or will go there with me. That can be the inner, private — about really clarifying, say, that the artist wants the audience to stand for twenty-­five minutes, Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space — that it’s intentional. Just making sure that all those There’s the inner, private need to create, but choices are intentional — and I have no doubt with at some point, it becomes public. And, at best, Sarah Michelson that those are very intentional that relationship’s not neat. choices — becomes the back and forth. You then have to ask, for instance, “How can I protect your I want to talk a little bit more about Some sweet need to have the work seen in this way?,” and then, day at moma, but I do want to say something else “What’s the reason for that and how can we accom- about your I Get Lost. For each Platform there’s plish it?” As you know, there are so many limita- a catalog, and I knew that we would need an edi- tions at Danspace because of the historic nature of tor brought in. You invited Katherine Profeta, the space, but what I say to the technical staff and to who has been your dramaturg for a very long time. our staff is “Let’s make it ‘yes’ until it really has to be It was a revelation to me — to have someone like ‘no,’ ” and so it’s sort of an implicit process of trying Katherine sit in on every meeting with every art- to tease out the “whys” behind each choice, without ist and go to rehearsals. You don’t get that in dance getting too dogmatic about it. So that I can help an presenting, in dance curation; there’s no one there artist make it happen. tracking this information. I thought, “Oh, we all Right. That’s the interesting part because need to have a dramaturg! This is amazing!” How I know that as an artist there’s an element do you see dramaturgy versus curation? of illusion, the fantasy that you can execute They’re very different, I think. Just at least impossibility, which is very important. But with my experience of the work, say, if I go to without those considering the spaces that a really good show that is curated well, I get a are real, then nothing really happens, right? sense that this is happening. There’s a really So, you really don’t get to ask the question interesting creative practice going on, which is directly, and I think that is the dance of cura- really different from documenting and track- tion, right? You know, with Sarah Michelson, ing the creative practice. I feel like there are all it was like I want to make this dance, and I these layers to a good presentation of an event don’t really want anyone to see it, but I want or of an object or objects, and with my work

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with Katherine over the years that hers is truly I think that’s part of the discovery process that a very exercised point of view. In it, she’s, in a we’ve all committed to in the last few years. Let’s way, not allowing herself to become creative talk about Some sweet day: its content and the almost — although she is wildly creative — but way you approached the pairings, as well as its she’s keeping the creativity at bay to have as relationship to the idea you mentioned with ica much objectivity toward what she’s watching Boston. as possible. And I think over the years that it Sam Miller, who was working with ica at the has become harder and harder for her to do time, invited me to think about doing a cura- because she’s accumulated so much informa- torial project for this ica project, which was tion about my particular creative process. We a project about the blues; it has since become start thinking alike. But I feel like that kind Blues for Smoke, which was at moca. of tracking calls for this certain kind of objec- tivity, not only in how she’s thinking about And the Whitney. things, but also in how much she’s allowing herself to play, you know? Because it’s infor- It was ultimately going to be at ica, but that mation. And it’s about how this information didn’t happen, and by the time it didn’t hap- relates to the information that came the day pen, I was sort of really excited about it. So, it before and the day before that and so on. And was something I put on a shelf, and then right for her, I think the way it breaks down creates after How Can You Stay in the House All Day another interesting sort of discussion about and Not Go Anywhere? in 2011, I approached dramaturgical practice. Kathy Halbreich at moma. We’re friends, so I said, “You know I have an idea for a dance Working with artist-­curators I find that there’s a project in the Atrium,” and this came about generative nature to the collaboration, as with you because of On Line, which was a drawing and then later as when I worked with Trajal Har- show curated by Connie Butler and Catherine rell, Juliette Mapp, Melinda Ring, David Parker, de Zegher that had a few dance components and others. You each introduce ideas from your to it, and my work was part of it. So I was own practice that will then inform the curatorial coming at it from the excitement of my own process; this happened at Danspace Project. Or, involvement with dancing in the Atrium space say, what if there isn’t a single curatorial author, at moma, within moma. These voluminous what if actually — and I think this is how it’s really museum spaces hold objects, but they’re some- happening — it’s a layered and complementary times interested in holding the ephemeral, process? That is what will have the greatest effect so I presented this idea to Kathy, who before both for the artists, who are making the work, in coming to moma had been at the Walker Art terms of how they can have their work heard, Center, which has a long history in hybrid read, responded to, but also for that outside person, work. She liked it and made it happen. Then Sarah Michelson’s the person I’m always thinking about, who just it was about figuring out who is in this hap- Devotion Study #3, walked in off the street to sit there. pening. The lineup was a little different from part of Some sweet the one that was at the ica. I’ve been think- day, curated by It’s about a very vigilant, committed critical Ralph Lemon with ing about it a lot since, really trying to clarify response to what’s happening. Jenny Schlenzka, what that thing was, and not only Some sweet moma, New York, day, but also myself as curator within the sys- 2012. Photo: tem. Something that I’ve come up with is that Paula Court

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it was an infiltration, or it feels like that to me, energy that goes along with that if one needs because I feel like I really don’t know what to keep something activated, right? It wasn’t it is to curate. It’s an exercise or a practice really race, but I had felt, you know, as a black that’s parallel to how I think about creating man and a black artist, more ownership in performances or events or choreography, so kind of thinking about it this way. Instead perhaps it’s curation as choreography, or how of sort of racializing it out of convenience, I understand choreography. This means then it was about acting out. Like Steve Paxton that what I’m doing is kind of creating a con- acts out, or Deborah Hay acts out, or Sarah stellation of parts: there’s a part that’s about Michelson acts out. It felt like it was some- writing, there’s a part that’s about thinking, thing we could all relate to, at least in how I there’s a part that’s about a certain kind of was looking at this work. I kind of offered that philosophy, and there’s the part that’s actually as something to be embraced or ignored, but about working with other human beings. It’s a I also wanted to make it present that I am a mash-­up, or it has been that since my work on black curator. “I’m Ralph Lemon, and I make the Geography trilogy. , and I love you all, but I’m also black,” I went into the process with maybe two right? It felt like an important statement that, or three points, you know, that I wanted to again, could be ignored because on some level share with the artists involved: one was about it doesn’t make any difference; you’re com- inhabiting the Atrium space; the second was ing, you’re doing your work in this space, end about pairing, and the pairings were just a sort of story. And that particular point was the of a personal exercise for me about these two one that after the fact created the most con- artists that I felt like had some kind of tangen- troversy, which was interesting for various tial relationship, you know? Sarah Michelson reasons. and Deborah Hay. Steve Paxton and Jérôme Bel. Faustin Linyekula and Dean Moss. Some I have a question about Some sweet day and the relationships were obvious; some, not so obvi- three areas you were concerned with: the Atrium ous. Some I could address publicly, and oth- space, the artistic pairings, and this secret, the ers I wanted to keep as something, you know, Easter egg, the question about black music. How private for myself. I was also just being prac- much did keeping that secret set up both artists and tically neurotic about it, in the sense of how audience to have a public misunderstanding? In much of the meaning of these I was sharing. other words, did that role of guiding the audience There were the space and the pairings, and in and placing them, you were talking about with there was a third question, which was more regard to I Get Lost, in very simple terms, like, of a secret. I called it the “Easter egg,” and it “Sit here, you’ll have a good view,” and welcoming was this question that is now a big part of my everyone — come into play on Some sweet day current research in this new work I’m investi- in the sense of the almost acting like curator-­as-­ gating, and it’s the question, “What is black trickster? music?” Or, more generally, it is the question I was both intentionally and unconsciously of American blackness, whatever that is. Or, it being a trickster, and it felt like I could only is the question of a culture acting out because address this issue truthfully in a way that felt there is no other psychic or physical choice unreliable, do you know? And that’s race in but to act out. It is a kind of fugitivity, which America. It is and it’s not, it’s obvious and I thought was also more inclusive because it’s not, it’s present and it’s not, do you know it wasn’t dealing in racial terms, but just in what I mean? It was very important that peo- terms of feeling like a fugitive and the kind of

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ple were looking at Some sweet day not from approaching it took me a while, but your curatorial a racial point of view. Jérôme Bel, because of work in the Atrium related to that kind of idea of just our initial discussion of what he wanted odd juxtapositions. to do and how he wanted to be involved, and But they’re also speaking, and this is the most now because he’s in France and not here, had important part to me. I think with the Nau- literally no idea what was going on. He was man work — you know, the wall-­floor position like, “What secret? What are you talking work in 1965 and the Voting Rights Act at the about? I wanted to do The Show Must Go On same point in time and their juxtaposition — or some variation on it in the Atrium. That’s there is a profound contrast: a white art body, all I want to do.” And Steve Paxton was living in such a kind of enlightened time and like, “I want to project something I’ve been space where they can just make art about their working on all my life onto the moma ceil- body, the wall, and the floor, and then a whole ing.” And then I said, “Okay, but how about other black American body politic that can’t maybe doing Satisfyin’ Lover?” And he’s like, vote. I grew up and could hold both worlds, “That’s a good idea, let’s do that.” I’m taking so there’s something very beautiful about this information and kind of coding it in, so it that — sad and painful and exciting. And was just a little element that was perverse, but that’s my life, and there’s no hierarchy: that’s I felt like that’s also being a curator — not that where it becomes kind of interesting or ener- any of this was dishonest, but there’s intention getic, when you think of the conflict. about the container, and the container at times is at odds with the work it’s holding, right? We had a conversation at Danspace after the three And as a curator I’m conflicted with who I am weeks of Some sweet day, a four-­hour conver- as a human being, with the kind of art I make, sation, and each hour was devoted to one of the and the people that I love. So I felt I was just weeks. We, Jenn Joy and I, invited other scholars fessing up to that, and I can say this after the and artists not involved in Some sweet day to go fact. I certainly didn’t go into Some sweet day to the performances and then to go to the conver- being aware of all of this. sations and respond. One was Thomas Lax, who’s the curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and But it does reflect the way you come at your own I’ll just read some of what he said on that panel and work and your own practice? let you respond accordingly. Thomas says, Exactly. And one big difference between the way in Keeping certain information hidden — I mean, which blackness as an idea distinguishes I was writing about this today, how you’re inter- visual artists from choreographers, espe- ested in hidden treasures and hidden horrors in cially choreographers who appear in their your work, whether they’re implied or you make own work as the appearance of the black them explicit or you hold things side by side — seems body. In a very fundamental way, if you’re to be something present in your work even as far a black artist and you don’t appear in your back as Bruce Nauman and your interest in that work, then there are ways in which your work, as well as when you had Djédjé Djédjé race might hover or might just kind of not Gervais reperform the Bruce Nauman work, mak- have to be dealt with as a mover. If you’re ing that between the year that work dancing in your own work, your blackness was made and the Voting Rights Act, placing those appears differently for different viewers. two things sitting side by side. To see the way you’re Given the kind of container of the space,

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the fact that the performers were black, I dance, so not just Sarah as Sarah, but rather think, that might be heightened just given Sarah representing something. And Jérôme the paucity of the presence of black artists Bel, representing a vital, if also arguably out- in that Atrium space. This might not be an dated, conceptual European genius. Our con- exhaustive list, but according to my own versation, or the argument we’re having across memory, the black artists whose works the ocean about relevancy of work — have appeared in that Atrium space before include , who had a solo Relevance and embodiment — retrospective right after the new 53rd Street Embodiment, exactly — building opened, and Kara Walker had an installation there about a year and half Versus a solely conceptual approach to the expanded ago. I believe during Marina Abramović’s field of choreography. famous The Artist Is Present, an artist named Kenya Robinson, a student at Yale, And Faustin Linyekula’s post-­postcolonial invited a group of black artists and friends African art flow, right? I think what was so to occupy a line to create a black line in that great about that was that colonialism or post- space. And then Sarah Michelson reminded colonialism is Faustin’s Judson. It’s something us that there was the performance of secu- he brought neatly into the conversation I was rity guards, many of whom are black, in having, whether he would acknowledge that that space every day. or not. Meanwhile, Dean Moss was a kind of reflection of myself, right? Gender, race, the Any thoughts about Thomas’s comments? same kind of modernism perhaps. His is very different work, but we grew up in the same It goes back to reminding myself of that fact. I point in time, we circulate around a similar was enthused about being in the Atrium space placement in this world. Kevin Beasley is a as a dancer, about being in that body politic revelation because he’s a visual artist who hap- and that kind of ghetto, so it was less about pens to create sculptures that, you know, fit being black and more about being a dance within his dj practice; his work is visual object person. It was about the fugitivity of that in based, with sound and body, and he’s young the mythology of this space, too. We were and generous. So for me, he represented the bringing a certain mythology into moma, future and a nondance body. That was impor- whether that exists or not who knows really, tant. And his particular work in the Atrium so the Easter egg was helpful in just creating was the work that most terrified me out of all that kind of topic around the work, which was the others. I didn’t know that would happen. dealing with a lot of other stuff. There are the three main curatorial points, and then there What about his work terrified you? are all these subpoints that I was really inter- ested in: Judson, its myth, its weight, tyranny, It was of a work where he brought in a num- blessing, and specifically Paxton as this unfor- ber of speakers, a lot of sub-­woofers, and was giving art God and Deborah Hay, who’s a very sampling a capella hip-­hop scores from people dear and complex friend. Mentors. There’s like Tupac and Biggie Smalls, you know, hip-­ Sarah Michelson, who to me is part of that hoppers from the generation he grew up with, whole constellation, but also someone repre- hip-­hoppers who died before they became the senting the most current in American modern Jay-­Z’s, before they became like stadium fill-

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ers, so they were still really raw and danger- After watching these pieces, what I was ous and black, like scary, like real, serious, thinking about most was the use of vibra- like hardcore hip-­hop music, and he slowed it tions and reverberation and not just down, and it just felt dark and — sound, but sound that shakes the founda- tions. It’s about something, it’s something Shaking the very foundations of the museum, about channeling spirits past, like Dean right? talking about John Brown and trying to find some self-­portrait through a portrayal Yeah, via the technology and because of the of John Brown and channeling spirits that volume and the subwoofers, the whole of are present but elsewhere, like Faustin say- moma was shaking, and it was interesting ing that this was a way to try to inhabit because he opened the same day The Scream the white box and say his name — who opened, right? would he be saying to? He was going to try to say it to his grandmother in the Wow. Congo, and he said that the audience was Yeah, the painting, it was — going to be a medium for that connection. In Dean’s piece, I was looking at discreet So it was packed. narrative episodes and a big question for me is whether or not or how to read race It was packed. in that piece. In Faustin’s piece, there was this painstaking investigation and taking With tourists — apart of different kinds of flow, sounding People were complaining and wanting their and being, unpacking that in just a single money back, and thank God Kathy [Hal- phrase. breich] and Glenn Lowry were both out of town, so we didn’t get shut down, but it just Kevin Beasley became the manifestation of these felt incredibly, realistically, and honestly other kinds of sounds and reverberations that were transgressive, and we all talk as though this is pushing out of that space, both being very present the kind of work we want to make or should in the center of it and then bursting past it. make. This work did it. And it wasn’t inten- And his sense of what was happening! He just tional for me; it felt accidental. And Kevin is invited all his friends and classmates from just doing what he does with a smile on his Yale, so the place was packed with elite art face, and he’s the nicest guy, so he wasn’t try- students and his family, and, you know, it just ing to fuck things up, but he fucked things up. felt contemporary. And everyone was getting And I felt like when I walked away from that it on different levels, so there was that. It was moment as a curator very proud of this one beautiful. because I got scared, you know? After Kevin, then there’s moma, that space, the temple, its government, its econ- Katherine Profeta, in this same conversation that omy, and again it was clear to me that this you were a part of, said something about reverber- was an infiltration into the temple’s heart, the ation, and I just think it’s beautiful. She said, Atrium. For me, it was addressing this as an antispace, an antitheater, hybridity, and its

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An All Day Event: unreliable, unpredictable audience, so that the it’s the thing that would have called most of The End, Danspace ultimate constellation of all these was really the attention away from everything else. Of Project, New York, abundant and beyond, I think, anything I course, after all these points, I was working 2012. Photo: Ian Douglas could really get my hands around. That was with real people and real bodies, egos, aes- the point: how big can I open this up, given thetic elements, and these things were sort that I have the opportunity to do it? These are of let loose into this very emphatic territory all the things that were really interesting to of moma and its government, where my tiny me, and race happens to be one of them, but constellation became this universe, so that was race was also the one I had to keep more secret very generative and I left that feeling like oh, because it would have distracted, especially there’s so much more at least that’s personally since, in our country at this point in time, how I feel about this.

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Observing you, at least since the early nineties, In any creative endeavor, certainly in these there are things that are present in your artis- curatorial kind of moments, there are rev- tic research that relate to the way you’ve been elations, and the revelation for An All Day approaching curatorial practice, like falling and Event was that asking a body to be in a space failing, a poetics of failure, and hidden treasures, improvising for an hour is really a lot, but we hidden horrors. But you often move toward diffi- stuck to that, and that felt really like a very culty rather than away from it, maybe not toward good thing at the end of that event to me. The resolution but at least toward some unusual reveal durational part became really key. It was less of something difficult. I’m going to use this to tran- about whether any of these other things were sition into one last curatorial project that I’m very successful, and rather became about duration, interested in and the aesthetics of disappearance; or even the sort of wear and tear on the space you use Paul Virilio as a point of reference for a or the wear and tear on the audience, those completely different kind of conceptual curato- that would sit through a lot of it, then take rial, artistic hybrid project as a part of Parallels breaks and come back without knowing what at Danspace Project called An All Day Event: they were watching. The End. This was an extraordinary model cross- ing artistic and curatorial research, concept, and That was one of the amazing surprises. I should score, as well as the collision of the questions “What preface this by saying that the Parallels project was is black music?” and “What is our Judson legacy in a thirty-­year recognition or anniversary of Ish- terms of scoring and improvisation?” What is our mael Houston-­Jones’s Danspace series of the same shared history at St. Mark’s Church, Danspace name from 1982, but he did a number of things Project and what is not? What does one expect which were incredibly generative. For the anni- to see in that space? How can we upend what we versary he invited a lot of emerging artists to par- expect to see in an iconic space like Danspace? ticipate, and he also invited other artists to curate events, and this was the event that you curated. I I think in hindsight maybe that was like Some think Claudia La Rocco called the Platforms “Rus- sweet day with all live music. I mean, here I sian nesting dolls”: there’s a curator, but then there didn’t have to ask what’s black music, right? were other things that were generated within that, Those questions didn’t come up, but they were sort of like a rhizome or a constellation that moves all black bodies. Everyone could do whatever in many directions. But what I loved about An they wanted. The primary curatorial point All Day Event and what was a surprise for me was you the artist have an hour to simply be was the overlap between dance artists, actors, and in this space — sound artist Kevin Beasley.

So ten artists were invited over ten consecutive Kevin Beasley and a young thirteen-year-­old hours, and you gave them a score, and then they had named Willow who had taken dance classes. to create their score within a score. But the last twenty minutes were rough for every- I think the biggest surprise and challenge was one, and you created a situation of relief where the the enormous demand of being in this space next performer came on with a ten-­ or fifteen-­ by yourself for an hour. minute overlap, and this moment was exciting. “When is the next person entering the space?” It It was quite demanding. was just a very beautiful actualization of the dif-

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ficulty of making, the difficulty of being in the body, I generalize this). There’s an interest in going the difficulty of being watched in a very private to see what will happen in a museum per- moment, it was just incredible. formance, while in the theater world, there’s more of a sense of already knowing what will You were really watching the body strug- happen because it starts at a certain time, and gle with being present, and I feel like that you pay a certain amount, and you go and sit, whole work, the whole structure of it, kind and there’s maybe a pretend of more knowl- of stripped away a certain kind of artifice of edge than actually exists because of the con- preparation, I thought would be interesting to tainer, you know? There’s a certain tyranny set it up so it was a very raw event, and, again to theater, to the ritual of going and watching from an audience point of view, I thought, something onstage, even if that something on- “Why don’t we do more of this, why don’t stage is shocking and surprising and confront- more of these happen because it seems like ing. One is still sort of safe within the param- this is really generous?” You know there is eters of “I know at a certain time, at a certain something going on, and you can kind of just moment, it’s over, and all of us are going to drop in and check it out and leave when you walk out together.” I think museum spaces want to leave. are much more chaotic; there’s an event, it’s going to happen and it’s going to be over, but When you and Okwui performed Untitled Duet it’s happening within all this other stuff that’s at the Atrium, I noticed that, in the context of pre- going on, so there may be an element or an senting durational dance and performance, if you opportunity for it to disrupt something. I feel provide a situation where people can leave, they like a museum audience goes in with that feel- end up staying longer. Using these forms to chal- ing that the performance will disrupt spectat- lenge the way we’re presenting and using time is ing as they know it, which is something I’ve I think critical right now. It was surprising: we been thinking about. thought people would come and go and be rest- less, but actually people seemed to stay for at least These different disciplines actually train us how to three hours, and many people said, “I’m so sorry I perceive, how to interact with all that. had to leave, I had a dinner appointment, I had no idea I was going to want to stay this long.” At Exactly. And that’s the really lovely part about your performance at the Atrium, there were hun- performance in museums right now; there’s dreds of people who watched all forty-­five minutes no training going on, not yet, because the of a very difficult duet. I guess I’m trying to coun- museum spaces haven’t quite figured out what ter this idea that people have had that all museums they want to do with it. are presenting dance only because it’s a spectacle or it’s entertaining or it’s presentational, while what Two more things: One is a thought about an archi- I’ve been witnessing is that there are many people tect, David Adjaye, who I heard once say, when he and curators who want the opposite, the depth, and was designing a very small museum in Denver, can sit with the difficulty if you give them more the Museum of Contemporary Art, that he wanted agency in their relationship with the work. to design the museum to alleviate the exhaustion of being in a museum. That idea stayed with me I feel like the interesting difference with the in terms of my role as curator — to alleviate the museum setting, in my experience with per- exhaustion of being in a conventional space, in formance, is the intention of the audience (and

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a black box theater. Is it daylight? Is it a fifteen-­ minute performance, or is it a twelve-­hour per- formance? How are we using time? How are we disrupting our own modes of being and ways of perceiving? After these projects, how do you think your curatorial projects, work, practice, and reflec- tions are influencing your art making process mov- ing forward? Or are they?

That’s a great question. I don’t know. I really don’t, but I feel like my art-­making practice is getting more spatial, so maybe it’s the curato- rial work encouraging that kind of wideness. I mean, I don’t I feel like I’m moving away from performance as I know it, but I’m much more interested in what’s holding it and how it’s thought about.

So, space, architecture, placement of architecture . . .

Space is really important — the relationship between it, how it’s seen, how it’s thought about. The work’s getting much more focused on Foucault, and I suspect that element is really a key part of the curatorial job, you know, to ask, “What is the philosophy of this thing that we’re containing?” But it all feels very synergistic, like the curatorial has sort of been on the same track as what Geography was ultimately about, which is to ask: What if I just get off the stage as I know it and, as I dance, honor who I am and what I’ve done historically, but just have as much of a conver- sation with that history, with who I am, and with as much of the whole world as possible?

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