Dance screening

December 30, 2023 from 8:00pm-10:00pm

Event Information:
After the success of Einstein on the Beach (1976), Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass were looking for more ways to collaborate with each other to further engage with the relationship between dance and music. Described as a "leap of faith," Glass then invited Sol LeWitt—who had never worked in the theatre—to join him and Childs in the development of a new work. Despite LeWitt's lack of experience in the performing arts, his success as a visual artist employed linework,geometry,grids, and orthographic projection as strategies of articulating ideas rather than simply an illustration of a minimalist aesthetic. This conceptual mode then frames LeWitt's work not just as formal figuration but also choreography and score. This is most evident in LeWitt's "wall drawings," which unfold through the realization of a series of rules and prompts. Indeed, it was not important for LeWitt to necessarily be the maker of the line but rather the choreographer of the nature, and quality, of the line. When considering LeWitt's oeuvre then as a product of movement and action, the rationale for Glass's invitation comes into focus.

The result is DANCE, a work where Child's choreography meticulously follows every subtle nuance and shifting pattern of Philip Glass's score, so that you can see the music in the bodies of the 12-white clad dancers. For the audience, the perception of sight and hearing is completely fused. During the original 1979 performance, LeWitt shot a film of the dance, and then cut, layered, and floated it onto a scrim for subsequent live performances. The dancers in Sol LeWitt's film, featuring Lucinda Childs herself, appear to flit through the live dancers, perfectly in sync. This superimposition connects 1979 with 2014, and on the occasion of this screening 2023 on the eve of 2024.