Dance
Elaine Summers
A pioneer presents dance and film.
By Gia Kourlas
For Danspace Project’s Platform series “Back to New York City,” curator Juliette Mapp has assembled a group of choreographers whose age and experience span seven decades. Its undisputed queen is Elaine Summers. A pioneer in dance, film and “intermedia” performance, Summers, 85, moved to New York in the early ’50s and, after taking part in the workshops of Robert Ellis Dunn at the Cunningham studio, became a founding member of Judson Dance Theater. This weekend she presents a program of dances and films. On a recent afternoon in her Soho loft, Summers, joined by Mapp, discussed her life’s work.
How did you meet?
Juliette Mapp: I heard about Elaine from my Alexander teacher, June Ekman. She incorporates the use of balls, and I really loved that technique. She said, “Well, if you really love it, you should just go find Elaine Summers.”
Elaine Summers: June Ekman was in my first dance company at Judson.
Mapp: I did not know that! I was teaching at Movement Research—which is on the top floor [of Summers’s building]—and I walked past a door that said “Study Kinetic Awareness with Elaine Summers,” and I was like, Oh, okay! [Laughs] The class was Tuesday night, and I showed up, and I was the only student. And Elaine said, “Well, isn’t it the best when you show up for your first class and you’re the only student?” I didn’t know Elaine was a filmmaker and a dance maker. Once I found that out, our relationship grew.
Summers: It’s been such a wave of incredible exploration of dance—coming to New York and thinking, I’d like to have a dance company where the dancers weren’t all the same size.
Mapp: [Laughs] Radical.
Summers: Just to start. This is the 1950s. There were people here: Aileen Passloff and Trisha Brown and the whole group studying at Merce Cunningham’s. Carolyn Brown was in the same class with me at Juilliard.
Mapp: It was kind of an amazing class.
Summers: Oh, it was. Paul Taylor would sit beside me and draw parades of people. I wish I could find them.
Mapp: And didn’t one of your teachers say that only two of you were going to succeed at dance?
Summers: Yes. There was a very beautiful Asian woman and she always wore a skirt and shoes with a little heel. And she sat; she never warmed up with us. One day, she looked out wisely to us and said to all us beaming idiots, “Well, you know only two of you will ever become worth anything as dancers.” Carolyn and I went, “What?”[Laughs]
You also took Dunn’s famous class at the Cunningham studio, which led to Judson Dance Theater. What do you remember about how the Judson performances began?
Summers: Yvonne [Rainer] and Steve [Paxton] went to Judson Church to see if they could find a place for us to show our work. They met [associate minister] Al Carmines and he was very open to it. We could rehearse there. It would be very funny sometimes—whole busloads of Southern Baptists walking through and we’d be in the main floor rolling on the floor and carrying on; they would look askance and then they would leave.
Mapp: [Laughs] This is what they do in church in New York.
Summers: Right! And then they moved us down to the basement for our regular meeting. I think we met on Monday night for two years and for those of us who were really into it, it was wonderful. We wouldn’t miss it for anything. We had it New Year’s Day. We made rules. There was a different captain on different nights; it changed our way of talking to each other. It wasn’t about, “You just made a great dance and I hated it,” but, “Say one thing that you actually saw.” That was one of Steve Paxton’s [directives].
You were the captain, of course, sometimes?
Summers: Oh, yes, yes. Everybody got a chance, although it got bigger and bigger of course. As long as the group really came there to [work that way] and understood that and didn’t come because of what happened—as soon as we got good reviews everybody wanted to be one of the group, but they didn’t really want to—that made a lot of difficulty.
And you first showed your films at Judson?
Summers: Yes! It was good luck. Rightly or wrongly, I feel that if a guy had done all the things I’ve done, there would be no question. And nobody really wanted to talk about film. They didn’t really see what I was doing until I did Fantastic Gardens [a 1964 interdisciplinary work featuring film and live dancers]. It was like going to heaven with all the angels on your side. The dancers and the choreographers really wanted to do each other’s work, and that’s what Judson gave us. It also taught us how to not criticize. It was the difference between looking at what it was that somebody wanted to do rather than trying to find something wrong. It taught you the substance and respect for the person’s kinetic or choreographic imagination. You never went there being scared to death they’d chop your ears off. And there was the excitement of New York. [She makes a little buzzing sound.]
Mapp: I want to tell an Elaine story. I came here once, and Elaine was on her way to visit her son. [To Summers] I don’t know if you remember this, but you asked me to help you pack and to get a taxi, so we went outside into the mayhem of Soho. Elaine was moving at her slow pace, but it was as if she knew exactly how fast everyone around her was going. She was carrying a bag of garbage, and we were crossing the street—everyone’s whizzing, whizzing, whizzing—and Elaine sees the garbage can from across the street and takes the garbage, flings it more than halfway across the street, and it lands in the garbage pail. And I was like, That’s Kinetic Awareness for you. [Laughs]
How does the evening at Danspace Project begin?
Mapp: With “Absence & Presence,” which is a short. We were watching it, and Elaine said, offhandedly, “Those are my legs.” It just looked like light and shadow, and I don’t even know that I tried to think about what it was. It just seemed like it was this really beautiful visual movement. But then to know that they were Elaine’s legs—when was “Absence & Presence” from?
Summers: Oh, it started in 1968 and I finished editing it in 1987 for the Museum of Modern Art show.
Mapp: So the legs are from ’68, but I still recognized them. [Laughs] All of a sudden, there was this intimacy with it whereas before it just seemed like an experimental film.
Summers: That was so funny. I had a tiny, little apartment and I’m thinking, How to do this? It’s two camera people on different body parts.
Skydance/Skytime/Skyweb, from 1984, will be performed at Danspace Project. It’s related to Skytime, a Web project described as “universal concept artwork” that explores the connection between art and technology. How did you come up with Skytime?
Summers: This is a pet project. It started in about 1996. I had gone down to Sarasota [Florida] to get my hip replaced and to be by the seashore, so every morning I got to read The New York Times. I kept reading about the Internet. I thought, Why am I reading about the Internet? And why aren’t I reading about the dance world? [Mapp snorts and Laughs.] My idea was to have a Web piece that is all about what everybody feels about the sky. I don’t care where they’re coming from, and I don’t mean for it to be scientific or anything like that—just a place where people can talk about their feelings about the sky.
Mapp: But this is the thing that is so interesting: Once I began to discover what Skytime was about, I realized that Elaine was interested in the Web in 1996.
Summers: I don’t know how I knew. Isn’t it strange how I did? [Laughs] I don’t feel I have that much control over my mind.
Elaine Summers Film and Dance Company is at Danspace Project Thu 18–Sat 20.Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/dance/83718/elaine-summers-film-and-dance-company-at-danspace-project-interview#ixzz0iTV0GoC7
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
New York and Her Feminine Dexterity
After seeing many of the performances during Ralph Lemon’s Platform “I get Lost” I was struck by how distinctive Ralph & Juliette’s presence feels on the vision of their platforms. Of course these are the two curators and their choices and guidance affect the artists and work that shows up at Danspace, but after spending so much time in the embrace of Ralph’s platform the shift is clear. To me, Ralph’s platform was shaped by the aesthetic interest of his process and the artists he chose, an idea, a thought, or a question (or many) about creative concerns. The idea bonded them in parallel pursuits. This concern with getting lost or rather to identify the cyclical nature of a contemporary view of New York’s artistic community; continually lost and finding.
In actuality, as an audience member at the performances, I didn’t feel a sense of being lost. Perhaps the artists got lost in their creative process, but what ended up on stage was what, they found, clear, powerful, assertive and identifiable works that supported their interests in getting somewhere. (I did find moments of Judith Sanchez-Ruiz’s solo And They Forgot to Love, held moments of getting lost, showing vulnerability in front of us, particularly when she wandered into moments of improv). Perhaps Maria Hassabi and Robert Steijn’s work in April, a continuation of Ralph’s platform, will retain the lost quality in the showing of the work. Yet to be seen.
But to respond to the task at hand and the work in view, Juliette Mapp’s platform has a distinctive maternal or perhaps feminine presence and rather than unifying the artists on an aesthetic idea, the platform is shaped by a place: New York. Coming to, leaving from, returning to, being physically here yet mentally elsewhere, or rather being somewhere else physically yet your heart remains tethered to New York, this woman-like city. Maybe as Juliette is a new mother or perhaps that all of the artists presenting work during the platform are women, save David Thompson, or that we all look to New York City to hold a certain female quality, I feel a certain hopeful yet realistic openness in the platform’s vision.
Men on Wall Street exert a tremendous amount of effort to own her, real estate is fought over, neglected, loved and it is the lowest on the economic totem pole that come to hold her and support her. I hear talk of New York as a mother, as a whore, as a sister, as a girlfriend, as an old woman forgotten and left to rot, as a baby girl we want to hold, we all love her, we all know she asks more of us, to redefine who we are, to constantly move. It is this movement that attracted me first to this city and the handsome catalogue corresponding to the platform illuminates that it was a similar draw for each of the artists. But these artists however young, Jen Rosenblit moved to NYC same time I did, or Elaine Summers whose life as been in and out of New York for many decades, all know her in a different time, yet exist knowing her again and again across time.
After the first weekend of Shelly Senter and David Thomson’s work I am eager to see more. Having re-read the entire catalogue three times and studied the photos closely I have such an informed view of these artists, I can’t wait to see how viewing their work will fill in the thoughts I already have.
Shelly and David, both former Bebe Miller and Trisha Brown dancers hold a kinetic history in their bodies. Both with a tremendous amount of experience in the NY dance community and in many other communities, dance and non-dance. Both showed compelling works that made my heart soar in support of the various ways I know my New York to be. I was particularly enthralled by Shelly’s use of set and open movement structures in her piece Grey Matter. Framed by two distinctive text scores her movement and those of her fellow performers fell out of their bodies, with little effort the space between the bodies folded into the space inside the bodies. I was struck by the open movement structures that Shelly used in sections of her work. I too have come to use these in my work. It was useful for me to see them at play, to see similar successes and problems that I face of allowing openness and freedom while finding a viewpoint and not wandering into boredom. Though she, or rather the male narrator, privileges boredom to precede phases of productivity. Loved this thought!
David Thomson’s work, 1959, an autobiographical melding of personal (his and the collaborating authors: Onomé Ekeh, Glenn Ligon, Clarinda Mac Low, and Pamela Sneed) with historical implications of events in 1959, is a work that examines authorship. Much like the physical textures in Shelly’s body, David’s movements are compelling falls, lifts, arms and legs reaching out into space, like tentacles sensing the room, the temperature, how to carve into the space and express what is found. It is amazing to learn that the other dancing part in his work was to be danced by Vicki Schick. With Omagbitse Omagbemi instead, the reading of the work is tremendously different, but this is the magic of this city and of our microcosm in the dance community. That we all can live such full and dynamic lifestyles along side each other and maintain that much dexterity that Vicki and Omagbitse can both participate in a work. This dexterity is supported by the various ways in which each of the artists in the catalogue engage their feminine and creative expressions. Each with a fervor and specific attention to their situation, there is not one path, but many and many paths for one person.
I deeply value seeing both Shelly and David move, it is a wonder. That only years of personal study of the body and of living in life can give. It was a gift.
Benn Rasmussen
Monday, March 8, 2010
Respondent Report: Shelley Senter and David Thomson
I am new to modern dance. Last Thursday’s shared evening with David Thomson and Shelley Senter is only the third modern dance performance I’ve seen in my life, ever. For me, it was an excellent introduction to this art, as well as introduction to Platform 2010: Back to New York City.
Shelley Senter’s piece met me at square one by challenging me to answer the most basic question—“What is dance?” Coming into that performance, I would have defined it as people moving around, accompanied by music. But Senter put lie to that definition immediately with her stillness and silence, then with the addition of a direct and forceful spoken narrative. What, if not dance, was Senter doing on stage, moving ever so slightly while accompanied (or in the company of, which I think is a better way to describe it), by this disembodied narrator? She clearly was communicating. She was engaged in what struck me as profound expression. So there’s my new definition of dance: “Expression through movement.”
The next performer of the night, David Thomson, gave me the opportunity to apply this definition. There, I looked for the expressiveness in every movement. His work educated me, not only about dance, but also about African and African-American social and political history. I found myself taking in information, as a student, not just through the words accompanying the dance, but also the way the dancers moved with them, in something like abstract-expressionist pantomime.
At the end of the performance I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Danspace’s executive director, Judy Hussie-Taylor. Bursting with enthusiasm about what I had seen, I related to her my last hour’s internal monologue. She responded that I should also look at the space where the dancers are not moving—the negative space. What a revelation that was! It was as if I had just seen Fight Club or The Sixth Sense and I wanted to watch the whole performance over again, armed with my new insight.
I can’t wait to see what Platform 2010 has next.
-Terri
Shelley Senter’s piece met me at square one by challenging me to answer the most basic question—“What is dance?” Coming into that performance, I would have defined it as people moving around, accompanied by music. But Senter put lie to that definition immediately with her stillness and silence, then with the addition of a direct and forceful spoken narrative. What, if not dance, was Senter doing on stage, moving ever so slightly while accompanied (or in the company of, which I think is a better way to describe it), by this disembodied narrator? She clearly was communicating. She was engaged in what struck me as profound expression. So there’s my new definition of dance: “Expression through movement.”
The next performer of the night, David Thomson, gave me the opportunity to apply this definition. There, I looked for the expressiveness in every movement. His work educated me, not only about dance, but also about African and African-American social and political history. I found myself taking in information, as a student, not just through the words accompanying the dance, but also the way the dancers moved with them, in something like abstract-expressionist pantomime.
At the end of the performance I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Danspace’s executive director, Judy Hussie-Taylor. Bursting with enthusiasm about what I had seen, I related to her my last hour’s internal monologue. She responded that I should also look at the space where the dancers are not moving—the negative space. What a revelation that was! It was as if I had just seen Fight Club or The Sixth Sense and I wanted to watch the whole performance over again, armed with my new insight.
I can’t wait to see what Platform 2010 has next.
-Terri
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Performa on Danspace Project's PLATFORMS 2010
Wow – Danspace Project has set the bar for New York dance programming incredibly high with its fantastic PLATFORM 2010 program, in which two remarkable artists – Ralph Lemon and Juliette Mapp – were invited to curate a series of new, commissioned performances for presentation at Danspace. Ralph Lemon has already presented most of his excellent i get lost program, and now it’s on to Juliette Mapp’s Back to NYC. The brochure for the latter just hit mailboxes today, and the line-up is absolutely terrific.
See the full list of performances here – we especially recommend Performa 09 artist Deborah Hay’s first solo performance in several years, No Time to Fly, a new work by David Thomson called 1959, that features text by writers including Glenn Ligon and Clarinda Mac Low, and Paige Martin’s mysterious PANORAMA, the publicity materials for which feature nothing but a campy 1970s family portrait and the instructions “Intended for mature audiences. Photo-taking allowed. Please arrive by 7:45 PM.” I have no idea what this means, but I’ll be there!
And we’re very excited that Performa 07 artist and fountain of wisdom Elaine Summers will be featured in not one, not two, but THREE events! From March 18-20 Danspace will present a retrospective evening of some of Elaine’s multimedia works–including the 1969 landmark Crow’s Nest, which was originally made for the Guggenheim Museum and features a beautiful score by Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Then, on March 20, there will be a two-part conversation event at the New Museum–the first part featuring Elaine in conversation with Pauline Oliveros, and the second part a roundtable with Elaine and several of the other Back to NYC artists. Do not miss this event–Elaine is an absolute delight in on-stage conversations and panel discussions, and has so much to share with contemporary artists of a younger generation continuing to work in New York. During Performa 07, Elaine participated in an on-stage conversation with Meredith Monk after one of the Dance After Choreography film screenings, and the two of them together were so much fun several audience members suggested that they get their own television show!
Elaine Summers is a true treasure in the New York dance and performance world, and Juliette Mapp and Danspace Project deserve enormous credit for programming her work along with the work of the many other outstanding artists in this series. Keep it up!
–Lana Wilson
http://performa-arts.org/blog/back-to-nyc-at-danspace-project/
See the full list of performances here – we especially recommend Performa 09 artist Deborah Hay’s first solo performance in several years, No Time to Fly, a new work by David Thomson called 1959, that features text by writers including Glenn Ligon and Clarinda Mac Low, and Paige Martin’s mysterious PANORAMA, the publicity materials for which feature nothing but a campy 1970s family portrait and the instructions “Intended for mature audiences. Photo-taking allowed. Please arrive by 7:45 PM.” I have no idea what this means, but I’ll be there!
And we’re very excited that Performa 07 artist and fountain of wisdom Elaine Summers will be featured in not one, not two, but THREE events! From March 18-20 Danspace will present a retrospective evening of some of Elaine’s multimedia works–including the 1969 landmark Crow’s Nest, which was originally made for the Guggenheim Museum and features a beautiful score by Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Then, on March 20, there will be a two-part conversation event at the New Museum–the first part featuring Elaine in conversation with Pauline Oliveros, and the second part a roundtable with Elaine and several of the other Back to NYC artists. Do not miss this event–Elaine is an absolute delight in on-stage conversations and panel discussions, and has so much to share with contemporary artists of a younger generation continuing to work in New York. During Performa 07, Elaine participated in an on-stage conversation with Meredith Monk after one of the Dance After Choreography film screenings, and the two of them together were so much fun several audience members suggested that they get their own television show!
Elaine Summers is a true treasure in the New York dance and performance world, and Juliette Mapp and Danspace Project deserve enormous credit for programming her work along with the work of the many other outstanding artists in this series. Keep it up!
–Lana Wilson
http://performa-arts.org/blog/back-to-nyc-at-danspace-project/
Performa on Danspace Project's PLATFORMS 2010
Wow – Danspace Project has set the bar for New York dance programming incredibly high with its fantastic PLATFORM 2010 program, in which two remarkable artists – Ralph Lemon and Juliette Mapp – were invited to curate a series of new, commissioned performances for presentation at Danspace. Ralph Lemon has already presented most of his excellent i get lost program, and now it’s on to Juliette Mapp’s Back to NYC. The brochure for the latter just hit mailboxes today, and the line-up is absolutely terrific.
See the full list of performances here – we especially recommend Performa 09 artist Deborah Hay’s first solo performance in several years, No Time to Fly, a new work by David Thomson called 1959, that features text by writers including Glenn Ligon and Clarinda Mac Low, and Paige Martin’s mysterious PANORAMA, the publicity materials for which feature nothing but a campy 1970s family portrait and the instructions “Intended for mature audiences. Photo-taking allowed. Please arrive by 7:45 PM.” I have no idea what this means, but I’ll be there!
And we’re very excited that Performa 07 artist and fountain of wisdom Elaine Summers will be featured in not one, not two, but THREE events! From March 18-20 Danspace will present a retrospective evening of some of Elaine’s multimedia works–including the 1969 landmark Crow’s Nest, which was originally made for the Guggenheim Museum and features a beautiful score by Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Then, on March 20, there will be a two-part conversation event at the New Museum–the first part featuring Elaine in conversation with Pauline Oliveros, and the second part a roundtable with Elaine and several of the other Back to NYC artists. Do not miss this event–Elaine is an absolute delight in on-stage conversations and panel discussions, and has so much to share with contemporary artists of a younger generation continuing to work in New York. During Performa 07, Elaine participated in an on-stage conversation with Meredith Monk after one of the Dance After Choreography film screenings, and the two of them together were so much fun several audience members suggested that they get their own television show!
Elaine Summers is a true treasure in the New York dance and performance world, and Juliette Mapp and Danspace Project deserve enormous credit for programming her work along with the work of the many other outstanding artists in this series. Keep it up!
–Lana Wilson
http://performa-arts.org/blog/back-to-nyc-at-danspace-project/
See the full list of performances here – we especially recommend Performa 09 artist Deborah Hay’s first solo performance in several years, No Time to Fly, a new work by David Thomson called 1959, that features text by writers including Glenn Ligon and Clarinda Mac Low, and Paige Martin’s mysterious PANORAMA, the publicity materials for which feature nothing but a campy 1970s family portrait and the instructions “Intended for mature audiences. Photo-taking allowed. Please arrive by 7:45 PM.” I have no idea what this means, but I’ll be there!
And we’re very excited that Performa 07 artist and fountain of wisdom Elaine Summers will be featured in not one, not two, but THREE events! From March 18-20 Danspace will present a retrospective evening of some of Elaine’s multimedia works–including the 1969 landmark Crow’s Nest, which was originally made for the Guggenheim Museum and features a beautiful score by Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Then, on March 20, there will be a two-part conversation event at the New Museum–the first part featuring Elaine in conversation with Pauline Oliveros, and the second part a roundtable with Elaine and several of the other Back to NYC artists. Do not miss this event–Elaine is an absolute delight in on-stage conversations and panel discussions, and has so much to share with contemporary artists of a younger generation continuing to work in New York. During Performa 07, Elaine participated in an on-stage conversation with Meredith Monk after one of the Dance After Choreography film screenings, and the two of them together were so much fun several audience members suggested that they get their own television show!
Elaine Summers is a true treasure in the New York dance and performance world, and Juliette Mapp and Danspace Project deserve enormous credit for programming her work along with the work of the many other outstanding artists in this series. Keep it up!
–Lana Wilson
http://performa-arts.org/blog/back-to-nyc-at-danspace-project/
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