Łódź/Museum of Art: An Evening of Dance Constructions featuring Simone Forti

The Museum of Art in Łódź (ms2) is holding a screening of An Evening of Dance Constructions featuring Simone Forti on 7 August (6 pm). The event comes as part of the exhibition Przyjdźcie, pokażemy Wam, co robimy [Come, we’ll show you what we do]. In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a programme titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things as part of a series of performances organised by composer La Monte Young at Yoko Ono’s New York studio. These choreographic pieces revolutionised dance, which in Forti’s rendering became a mode for the performers’ direct, non-stylistic actions. In a few pieces the artist used simple elements, such as a hanging rope, self-standing rectangular wooden boxes, which were placed around the studio, making up installations. In 2004 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles invited Forti to recreate the installation and the choreographic constructions which animated it as part of its exhibit A Minimalist Future Art as Object 1958 – 1986. The film released on DVD by Artpix (http://www.artpix.org/) is a record of the event.

Simone Forti is a dancer, choreographer, painter, sculptor, performer, creator of happenings and installations. She participated in the legendary Dancers Workshops by Anna Halprin. She collaborated with Judson Dance Theater in New York, including with Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Robert Morris, Steve Paxtone, Lucinda Childs. Experimenting with minimalist forms of movement and sculpture led her through observations of animal movement and investigations of plants’ kinetic properties to improvisation drawing

on animated headlines and articles from daily newspapers (“New Animations”). The exhibition’s title is a reference to the series of first contact improvisation presentations You come, we’ll show you what we do presented by Steve Paxton and his fellow practitioners during their 1973 tour of the US West Coast. The title also sums up the exhibition’s dynamic character as it constantly changes offering visitors events of different format, inviting active participation from visitors and encouraging nonschematic viewing, all facilitated by its mobile architecture made up of “improvisation devices” designed by BudCud group.

For updates on the exhibit’s events, go to the museum’s website