New York Premiere of
Yvonne Rainer’s
Assisted Living: Good Sports 2
and
a reprise of Spiraling Down
March 16–19, 2011, 8 pm
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, NYC
To purchase tickets, click here.
Performa is pleased to present the New York premiere of celebrated choreographer Yvonne Rainer’s new work, Assisted Living: Good Sports 2 (2011) and a reprisal of her acclaimed work Spiraling Down (2009) at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Produced and presented by Performa, the New York premiere follows the critically acclaimed French tour of Rainer’s work earlier this year. This also marks the continued collaboration between Performa and Rainer, which began in 2007 when Performa commissioned the choreographer to create RoS Indexical for the Performa 07 biennial. Performa has since gone on to present Rainer’s work internationally.Assisted Living: Good Sports 2 is derived in part from a collection of New York Times photographs, mainly from the sports section, accumulated by the choreographer over a period of two years. The work also includes three unexpected performers: the lighting designer, set designer, and Yvonne Rainer herself. In its tragicomic alternations, the strength of its texts, the precision and litany of movement references to sports, play, and death, and its haunting soundtrack—Assisted Living evolves into a powerful rumination on the unpredictability of daily life.
Spiraling Down, which premiered during Performa 09, draws its inspiration from a variety of sources—including newspaper photos, soccer moves, old movies, and Rainer’s own disinterred dances from the 1960s—all of which contribute to the melancholic and contradictory assemblage of ideas, images, and texts, both spoken and recorded.
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer (b. San Francisco, 1934) lives and works in California and New York. She trained as a modern dancer and began to choreographer her own work in 1960. She was also one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962. Major dance pieces include Trio A (1966); The Mind is a Muscle (1968); After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (2000); Performa 07 Commission RoS Indexical (2007); and Spiraling Down (2009). Major film works include Lives of Performers (1972), and MURDER and murder (1996). Retrospectives of Rainer’s work have been presented at the Tramway, Scotland; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and San Francisco; and the British Film Institute. Recent tours have included Montpellier Danse Festival, France; Centre Pompidou, France; RED CAT, Los Angeles; and Hebbel, Berlin. Rainer has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim Fellowships (1969, 1988); Rockefeller Fellowships (1988, 1990, 1996); MacArthur Fellowship (1990–95); and a Wexner Prize (1995).
Yvonne Rainer is represented by Performa. For more information email info@performa-arts.org.
About Performa
Performa, a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization established by RoseLee Goldberg in 2004, is dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. In 2005 Performa launched New York’s first performance biennial, Performa 05, followed by Performa 07 (2007), and Performa 09 (2009). In 2011, Performa will present its fourth biennial, Performa 11 (November 1-20, 2011).
*Image above:
Performers left to right – Patricia Hoffbauer, Emmanuele Phuon, Sally Silver, Pat Catterson, and Keith Sabado.
Photo courtesy of Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Courtesy of Performa.
