Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done ABOUT THE EXHIBITION MOVING-IMAGE INSTALLATION DESIGNED BY CHARLES ATLAS ******************************** ******************************** The exhibition is organized by Ana Janevski, Curator, and Thomas J. Lax, Associate For a brief period in the early For this exhibition, filmmaker Curator, with Martha Joseph, 1960s, a group of choreographers, and video artist Charles Atlas has Curatorial Assistant, Department visual artists, composers, and made an installation of historical of Media and Performance Art. Performances are produced filmmakers gathered in Judson moving-image material related by Lizzie Gorfaine, Producer, Memorial Church, a socially engaged to the work of the choreographers with Kate Scherer, Manager, Protestant congregation in New featured in the performance Performance and Live Programs. York’s Greenwich Village, for a program, alternating with a series of workshops that ultimately compilation of performance footage redefined what counted as dance. from the Judson group’s various The performances that evolved members. It includes footage of The exhibition is made possible from these workshops incorporated both individual and group pieces by Hyundai Card. everyday movements—gestures drawn made during the Judson era and Leadership support is provided from the street or the home; their after, emphasizing the relationship by Monique M. Schoen Warshaw, structures were based on games, of the soloist to the ensemble and The Jill and Peter Kraus Endowed simple tasks, and social dances. showing how Judson influenced the Fund for Contemporary Exhibitions, and by MoMA’s Wallis Spontaneity and unconventional later careers of these artists. Annenberg Fund for Innovation methods of composition were To create the segment dedicated to in Contemporary Art through the emphasized. The Judson artists Trisha Brown, Atlas collaborated Annenberg Foundation. investigated the very fundamentals with Trisha Brown Dance Company’s Major support is provided by of choreography, stripping dance former archivist Cori Olinghouse. Jody and John Arnhold and by of its theatrical conventions, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art. and the result, according to For decades, Atlas (American, VILLAGE VOICE critic Jill Johnston, b. 1949) has brought together Generous funding is provided was the most exciting new dance dance and media in ways that have by The Harkness Foundation for Dance. in a generation. Through live transformed how performance is performance, film, photography, documented. Atlas moved to New Additional support is provided by sculptural objects, musical scores, York in 1969 and soon started the Annual Exhibition Fund with major contributions from the poetry, and archival materials, working with the Merce Cunningham Estate of Ralph L. Riehle, Alice and JUDSON DANCE THEATER: THE WORK Dance Company as stage manager, Tom Tisch, Mimi and Peter Haas IS NEVER DONE traces the history lighting designer, and in-house Fund, Brett and Daniel Sundheim, Karen and Gary Winnick, The of Judson Dance Theater both in filmmaker. He left the Cunningham Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund and outside the church, from the company in 1984 but continued to for Exhibitions, and Oya and workshops that took place there collaborate with Cunningham while Bülent Eczacıbaşı. to other spaces around downtown making his own films and working MoMA Audio is supported by New York. with other artists, dancers, Bloomberg Philanthropies. musicians, and poets. Atlas has The program in the Donald B. and introduced new possibilities Catherine C. Marron Atrium is for representing dance on screen, organized into multiple-week collapsing moments in time and segments, each of which focuses following performers with his on the work of one artist: Yvonne camera to better capture their Rainer, Deborah Hay, David Gordon, movement through space. He also Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, and contributed to PAST FORWARD, Trisha Brown. Additionally, a video a major Judson reunion in 2000 installation of related material, organized by ballet dancer edited by the artist Charles Atlas, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak will be on view. In the final Dance Project. weeks of the exhibition, Movement Research, an organization with a direct lineage to Judson, will hold classes and workshops. YVONNE RAINER Since the beginning of her career SEP 16–23 in the early 1960s, Yvonne Rainer (American, b. 1934) has challenged ****************** many of the movement conventions and narrative structures of modern dance. PERFORMANCE PROGRAM The performance program features eight dances by Rainer, including SEP 16, 17, her earliest works, THREE SATIE 19, 20, 22 SPOONS (1961) and THREE SEASCAPES (1962), in which she explores various PROGRAM REPEATS AT relationships between movement and 12:30 AND 3:00 P.M. sound. The program also includes two sections from TERRAIN (1963)—the THREE SATIE SPOONS Judson Dance Theater’s first evening- (1961) length presentation of a single work by one choreographer—“Talking Solo” THREE SEASCAPES and “Diagonal,” the latter of which (1962) uses games as a guiding compositional principle. TRIO A (1966), which WE SHALL RUN (1963) has undergone many incarnations, is a series of precisely constructed TALKING SOLO (1963) sequences of seemingly disconnected motions, both virtuosic and mundane, DIAGONAL (1963) in which the performer never makes eye contact with the audience. Rainer CHAIR-PILLOW (1969) also experimented with athletic and everyday movements in WE SHALL RUN TRIO A: RETROGRADE, (1963), set to the Tuba mirum from FACING, IN THE Hector Berlioz’s 1837 Requiem, and MIDNIGHT HOUR CHAIR-PILLOW (1969), which was first (1969–2011) performed in her CONTINUOUS PROJECT— ALTERED DAILY (1969). This latter TRIO A WITH FLAGS project included many Judson dancers (1970) and explored different aspects of the working process of dance making, ****************** learning, and rehearsing. It was also an important source for The Grand MOVING-IMAGE PROGRAM Union, an improvisational group Rainer was key to forming in the TRIO A (1966), 1970s, which gathered some of the same performed in 1978 Judson participants together again. TRIO A (1966), Short films: HAND MOVIE (1966), and RHODE ISLAND RED (1968), performed in 1969 Rehearsal of CONTINUOUS PROJECT— ALTERED DAILY (1969) Peter Moore’s photograph of Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Schlichter (back), Sally Gross, Tony Holder, Deborah Hay, and Robert Morris (middle), Yvonne Rainer, Alex Hay, TRIO A WITH FLAGS and Lucinda Childs (front) in We Shall Run, 1963 (detail). Performed in Two Evenings (1970) 2 of Dances by Yvonne Rainer, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, March 7, 1965 DEBORAH HAY Deborah Hay (American, b. 1941) SEP 24–OCT 7 was active in the Judson Dance Theater group as both a dancer and ****************** choreographer. Like many of her peers, she explored the increasingly blurred PERFORMANCE PROGRAM line between choreography and everyday movement, organizing her pieces around OCT 4, 5, 6 tasks, games, repetition, and the AT 2:00 P.M. reduction of movement. In particular, she explored group configurations in TEN (1968) a selection of works shown at the Anderson Theater in 1968, including ****************** GROUP I (1968), GROUP II (1969), and TEN (1968). Jill Johnston, reviewing MOVING-IMAGE PROGRAM that concert in the VILLAGE VOICE, remarked that the three dances Deborah Hay’s “leave me searching for superlatives. Dance Classes I’m tempted with platitudes like (c. 1966) ‘breakthrough’ and ‘come a long way.’” The movements in all three dances Deborah Hay and consist almost entirely of casual Steve Paxton steps ordered into strict geometric Dancing in the configurations, and use the same basic Spring St. Loft materials: musicians, movers, and (c. 1968) poles. TEN requires ten performers to divide into groups of different GROUP I (1968) sizes and play a version of follow the leader around a vertical and a TEN (1968), horizontal pole. In the original 1968 performed in 1982 performance, the rock band The Third Eye provided live accompaniment. GROUP II (1969) However, when the piece was performed in 1982 at Danspace Project, ten TRIO I (1969) contemporary New York–based dancers and TEN (1968), and the band Max Fraction were performed in 1969 invited. Hay’s work illustrates her belief in the potential playfulness of dance and the responsiveness of the dancing body to its surroundings. From top: Deborah Hay. Still from Group I, 1968. Filmed by Robert Rauschenberg; 4 Deborah Hay. Still from Group II, 1969. Filmed by Hollis Frampton DAVID GORDON During his work as part of Judson OCT 8–21 Dance Theater, David Gordon (American, b. 1936) was interested ****************** in how choreography brings disparate elements together on stage, and how PERFORMANCE PROGRAM these elements are perceived by audiences. Gordon performed his solo OCT 18, 19, 20 MANNEQUIN DANCE (1962) at Judson AT 3:00 P.M. Dance Theater’s inaugural concert in 1962. The following year, his growing THE MATTER @ MoMA fascination with show business and (1971/2018) pop culture was visible in RANDOM BREAKFAST (1963), performed with his ****************** partner, dancer Valda Setterfield. In 1971 Gordon choreographed a group MOVING-IMAGE PROGRAM piece, THE MATTER (1971), during a Grand Union residency at Oberlin THE MATTER, College, and it was performed a rehearsal excerpts year later at the Cunningham Studio. from 1979 Throughout that performance, forty dancers—both trained and untrained— CHAIR (1974) suddenly froze, or took positions