Yvonne Rainer, the influential dance artist and film-maker, asks artist Sara Wookey, author of this thoughtful book of conversations between choreographers and curators: “Why are museums interested in dance now?”
A collaborative publication between Wookey and London’s Siobhan Davies Dance studio, Who Cares? Dance in the Gallery & Museum should be of interest to any curator wanting to expand the cultural range of their institution. Wookey and Kate Coyne, the programme manager at Siobhan Davies Dance, point out that the book’s title is not meant to “suggest cynicism or indifference to the subject of dance in the gallery and museum”, but quite the opposite.
“Care”, in the sense that the authors use the word, has an expansive definition. It includes protection and conservation as well as a greater awareness of the human body in motion in a social space. One comic example emerges in the interview between Wookey and Catherine Wood, the senior curator of international art (performance) at Tate Modern. This explains that we won’t be seeing any performances of Rainer’s 1969 dance piece Chair Pillow – a work that requires dancers to use chairs and pillows in the routine – because visitors at Tate are not allowed to stand on chairs in the galleries.
“[People] would be allowed to throw pillows,” says Wood. “But not stand on chairs because that’s classified as ‘working at height’.”
The book features 15 interviews with leading dancers and choreographers, curators and directors, including Andrew Bonacina, the chief curator at the Hepworth Wakefield; Alex Sainsbury, the director of Raven Row gallery in London; and Siobhan Davies herself.
What has been clear for some years is that museums and galleries have wised up to the amazing possibilities of performance. This is a way of presenting what could be termed an expanded theatre of culture. But – to answer Rainer’s initial question – it is also recognition that art movements include disparate elements, and curators have to be imaginative. There are many recent examples – the dance works staged in the BMW Tate Live programme, under the title If Tate Modern was Musée de la Danse, earlier this year; and visual artist Linder Sterling’s 2013 collaboration with the Northern Ballet at the Hepworth Wakefield.
One particularly impressive example was the Barbican Art Gallery’s 2011 show Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s. It focused on performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson, choreographer Trisha Brown and artist Gordon Matta- Clark. Brown’s wall-walking dances were re-created – specially erected roof-level gantries held harnessed dancers in place – and Anderson reprised an early 1970s performance that involved standing in ice-encased skating boots and playing her violin.
It makes sense for museums to invest in performance spaces (as the Tate is doing at Tate Modern) at a point when so many events of this type are being scheduled. But before curators execute a balletic leap in a terpsichorean direction, they would do well to listen to some of the practitioners’ caveats in Wookey’s book. Should museums build stage floors? If so, should they be sprung? (Yes, says Rainer.) What about laundry? Sainsbury says that Raven Row, which staged a Rainer season in 2014, had to look after dancers in a way that galleries don’t have to look after artists. Where does the audience sit? Bonacina highlights the importance of safety in spaces that have permeable boundaries between artists and the public.
Money is often a problem. Artist Florence Peake valued the visibility that working at Hayward Gallery, London, gave her, although the remuneration for the dancers was thin.
Wood acknowledges that the multitude of disciplines encompassed by the visual arts naturally invites wider scrutiny, while performance art employing dancers, though disciplined, is not subject to the same art- historical criticism. But the pay- off is immense.
As Sainsbury says, looking back to his gallery’s Rainer season in 2014: “Artwork on walls has seemed so inert since then!”
Louise Gray is a freelance arts writer
A collaborative publication between Wookey and London’s Siobhan Davies Dance studio, Who Cares? Dance in the Gallery & Museum should be of interest to any curator wanting to expand the cultural range of their institution. Wookey and Kate Coyne, the programme manager at Siobhan Davies Dance, point out that the book’s title is not meant to “suggest cynicism or indifference to the subject of dance in the gallery and museum”, but quite the opposite.
“Care”, in the sense that the authors use the word, has an expansive definition. It includes protection and conservation as well as a greater awareness of the human body in motion in a social space. One comic example emerges in the interview between Wookey and Catherine Wood, the senior curator of international art (performance) at Tate Modern. This explains that we won’t be seeing any performances of Rainer’s 1969 dance piece Chair Pillow – a work that requires dancers to use chairs and pillows in the routine – because visitors at Tate are not allowed to stand on chairs in the galleries.
“[People] would be allowed to throw pillows,” says Wood. “But not stand on chairs because that’s classified as ‘working at height’.”
The book features 15 interviews with leading dancers and choreographers, curators and directors, including Andrew Bonacina, the chief curator at the Hepworth Wakefield; Alex Sainsbury, the director of Raven Row gallery in London; and Siobhan Davies herself.
What has been clear for some years is that museums and galleries have wised up to the amazing possibilities of performance. This is a way of presenting what could be termed an expanded theatre of culture. But – to answer Rainer’s initial question – it is also recognition that art movements include disparate elements, and curators have to be imaginative. There are many recent examples – the dance works staged in the BMW Tate Live programme, under the title If Tate Modern was Musée de la Danse, earlier this year; and visual artist Linder Sterling’s 2013 collaboration with the Northern Ballet at the Hepworth Wakefield.
One particularly impressive example was the Barbican Art Gallery’s 2011 show Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s. It focused on performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson, choreographer Trisha Brown and artist Gordon Matta- Clark. Brown’s wall-walking dances were re-created – specially erected roof-level gantries held harnessed dancers in place – and Anderson reprised an early 1970s performance that involved standing in ice-encased skating boots and playing her violin.
It makes sense for museums to invest in performance spaces (as the Tate is doing at Tate Modern) at a point when so many events of this type are being scheduled. But before curators execute a balletic leap in a terpsichorean direction, they would do well to listen to some of the practitioners’ caveats in Wookey’s book. Should museums build stage floors? If so, should they be sprung? (Yes, says Rainer.) What about laundry? Sainsbury says that Raven Row, which staged a Rainer season in 2014, had to look after dancers in a way that galleries don’t have to look after artists. Where does the audience sit? Bonacina highlights the importance of safety in spaces that have permeable boundaries between artists and the public.
Money is often a problem. Artist Florence Peake valued the visibility that working at Hayward Gallery, London, gave her, although the remuneration for the dancers was thin.
Wood acknowledges that the multitude of disciplines encompassed by the visual arts naturally invites wider scrutiny, while performance art employing dancers, though disciplined, is not subject to the same art- historical criticism. But the pay- off is immense.
As Sainsbury says, looking back to his gallery’s Rainer season in 2014: “Artwork on walls has seemed so inert since then!”
Louise Gray is a freelance arts writer