September 27, 2018
This past weekend, I went to MoMA with a friend of mine to see a performance of the exhibit, “Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done,” which features the 1960s creations of six artists who showed their dances at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. These artists—Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, David Gordon, Lucinda Childs, and Trisha Brown—redefined what dance can be, inserting pedestrian movements into their work and experimenting with new ways of composition and improvisation. They invented post-modern dance. The MoMA exhibit is divided into sections, each of which features the work of one of these six artists. We attended one of the Yvonne Rainer performances.
We arrived 45 minutes before the start, having been warned by a friend that we should arrive early in order to secure seating. Even so, we were too late: there was a multitude of people already standing. The energy in the room was palpable immediately. Waiting in the places we had claimed, behind the last row of benches, we witnessed a couple of arguments about seating between some older patrons, one of whom was sure that five, not four, could fit on a bench. It was both humorous and embarrassing—and made clear that we all wanted to find a good spot because this was an important event.
Both my friend and I had already seen some of these dances, on Stephen Petronio’s company last year at The Joyce Theater in Chelsea: Trio A, Diagonal, and Chair-Pillow. A number, however, were new to us: We Shall Run, Three Seascapes, Three Satie Spoons, and Talking Solos. As happened the first time I saw Ms. Rainer’s dances, I was on Saturday overwhelmed by these works, by their abstract, but distinctly human, quality that encourages me to see not only bodies moving through space, but also human beings navigating the world and environment around them.
In this particular show, I was moved by the intergenerational cast of performers. They weren’t simply performers, they were human beings, who have lived a wide range of diverse experiences and have joined together in this shared movement. Ms. Rainer herself participated in Diagonal, and the work immediately became even more “pedestrian” when she entered: casually, she set her hat on the stage manager’s table off to the side, and entered the dance, like someone walking off the street into the piece. She was a pedestrian, rather than someone performing what they imagine a pedestrian to be. In this dance especially, the dancers’ camaraderie and joy in performing were apparent. It was filled with knowing glances between them, often followed by genuine smiles, and sometimes they spoke to one another audibly. There was one particularly warm and endearing moment here in which someone called out “9!” (this dance is centered on the task of moving on a diagonal from one corner to another, using a vocabulary of phrases/movements, which are each numbered; the dancers structure the piece by calling out various numbers to elicit a certain movement response). “9” initiates a movement in which the dancers crawl on all fours, crossing one knee over the other to slowly make their way across the floor. Ms. Rainer was on this trajectory with two other dancers and opted not to get on her knees to perform this crawl (she is 83, for heaven’s sake); instead, she walked between the two, reaching down occasionally to touch their backs as if to coax them on, very much still a part of the dance.
Three Satie Spoons was the favorite of the new-to-me pieces. Three women each had their own section, all set to Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies. Unlike the other works, which involved most or all of the stage, these three interlaced vignettes were oriented, for almost the entire duration, to face the audience head-on. Additionally, the performers were situated far downstage, fairly close to where the audience was congregated. Each had her own sequence, and each sequence featured repeated moments of balance. The piece was gorgeous in the composition of the phrases, the focus of the women, and the relationship between the movement and music. Particularly striking to me was Emily Coates, whose precise and perfect lines and enduring steadiness are remarkable. As with the program as a whole, the casting of dancers of all ages in Three Satie Spoons felt life-affirming, and it felt important to have Pat Catterson, the reconstructor of the works and “a woman of a certain age,” performing one of the sections.
David Thomson’s Talking Solo was a joy to watch, too. It was equal parts impressive (all that speaking at the same time as dancing an elaborate series of movements!), humorous, and engaging. I was captivated by his presence and his mellifluous speaking voice.
It feels pertinent and timely for MoMA to present this exhibit now, when all but one of the choreographers featured are still living. Post-modern dance, too, is now fully incorporated in modern dance curricula in universities, and it is a good exercise to remind us how and why it has firmly made its way into these curricula. Furthermore, the post-modern dance school provides a place for everyone, by suggesting that anyone, not just those with classical training and “perfect” bodies, can be dancers. It is a model of an egalitarian, democratic society, where those involved have decision-making power over the choreography (I can yell out “9” and make a change in the world of the dance) and where not everyone looks the same, but is still an equal part. It is a model to look to, particularly at this time.
It is also always a thrill to watch “concert dance” in a space like MoMA, in the world of (mostly) static visual art. I look forward to returning for more – especially Lucinda Childs.
Dance As I See It 