2007 Theses Bachelor's

Unusual dance spaces

Potaznik, Reina

Whether as a form of rebellion against modern dance or as an expression of the 1960s experimental culture, avant-garde choreographers created revolutionary works that exploded outside the frame of the proscenium stage. They discovered new performance spaces that ranged from church sanctuaries, museums, gymnasiums, lofts, and galleries, to sidewalks, public parks, tenement walls, and other places. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Trisha Brown and Twyla Tharp, in particular, were known for their exploratory, non-proscenium dance pieces executed in new and unusual performance spaces. The titles of Brown’s works described them. Man Walking Down Side of Building (1969) was staged on the side of 80 Wooster Street in downtown Manhattan, while Walking on the Wall (1971) was performed on the walls of a gallery in the Whitney Museum. Roof Piece (1971) took place on the roofs of buildings across an area of twelve blocks between Wooster and Lafayette Streets in Manhattan’s SoHo district. During those same years Tharp produced Medley (1969) on the Great Lawn of Central Park, Dancing in the Streets of London and Paris, Continued in Stockholm and Sometimes Madrid (1969) in galleries and staircases of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Torelli (1971), a three-part dance that spanned the entire length of the island of Manhattan. The first segment took place in Fort Tyron Park in Washington Heights, the second in Battery Park, and the third in the City Council chamber at City Hall.