40 Dancers do 40 Dances for the Dancers

Sept. 13, 2012. Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church. NYC.

One of three nights of performances, Sept. 13-15, 2012

Duration of total work: 1:10 Each individual dance is approx. 3 mins long.

Note: Though the performances took place on three distinct evenings, the piece took place over the course of the three nights and none of the nights were alike. The piece had no fixed seating, and took place throughout the entire church sanctuary space. More information: http://clarindamaclow.com/projects/2012-the-year-of-dance/40-dancers-do-40-dances-for-the-dancers/

"40 Dancers" brought together an eclectic group of colleagues to construct performances based on The Pronouns: A Collection of 40 Dances for the Dancers, a book of performance instruction poems written, through a series of chance procedures, by my father, poet/composer/multi-media artist Jackson Mac Low. "40 Dancers" was a social experiment that used The Pronouns to investigate how art-making forms communities and families. It was also a celebration of Jackson’s 90th birthday, a love letter to my dance community, and a recreation of a child’s-eye view of the 1970s New York “avant-garde” arts world. The piece was also my artist's autobiography through the prism of everybody I've collaborated with and been influenced by--the 40 "dancers" were selected from all parts of my artistic life over the past 25 years.

To begin making 40 Dancers, a copy of The Pronouns was distributed to all the participants. They were asked to pick the poems that resonated. People who picked the same poems worked on interpreting those dances together. A programmer created an algorithm that distributed all 40 poems across the three nights of performances, using a methodology similar to the one used to create the poems. Schedule conflicts, childcare and other life circumstances provided a further randomizer. The structure of the piece was a combination of all these factors.