The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Lucinda Childs is and always has been the master of maximum minimalism.


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Published: Sep 8, 2010

Sally Cohn

MIRROR, MIRROR: In Lucinda Childs' Dance, present-day dancers are juxtaposed with the 1979 video projected behind them.

In Lucinda Childs' Dance, a black-and-white film of dancers dressed in white performing on a white grid projects onto a large translucent scrim covering the front of a stage where a live cast, also dressed in white, simultaneously performs the exact same steps.

The mirroring is meticulously precise. But there's one major difference: The film, conceived and created by Sol LeWitt, features the cast from the piece's 1979 première, not the young dancers on the stage.

"The whole thing could have been redone, because we have Sol LeWitt's storyboard," Childs says of the revival. But she likes the contrast. It adds another dimension to the piece. Besides, "People like the reference from 30 years ago."

Three decades ago, dance was moving beyond modern to what would become postmodernism, but it hadn't gotten there just yet. "We're sort of referred to as the 'middle moderns,'" says Childs, referring to her colleagues, many of whom met while participating in the experimental collective known as Judson Dance Theater (1962-64).

Judsonites rejected the confines of codified dance and its formal technique. They believed dance need not have a story or be "about" anything at all; as was the custom at the time, dance could be just movement for movement's sake.

Childs flourished at Judson (which included many dance innovators, including Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainer) and went on to become a leading choreographer in her own right. Her mark of distinction was, and still is, maximum minimalism.

"What made her important was the skill she displayed and the interest she generated in manipulating movement patterns with intense repetition and minimal, subtle, exquisitely chosen variations," says Village Voice dance critic Deborah Jowitt. "Her work was very cool. ... Some people loved it and found it mesmerizing, and some people wondered, 'Is something going to happen?' And they had to realize, what was happening was what was happening, and that was what was going to happen. But she built into increasing complexity."

Childs hasn't had a company for 10 years, and even when she did, she toured more in Europe than in the U.S. "Here in the States, she was in vogue for a time and then she wasn't and now she's having her due," says Nick Stuccio, producing director of the Live Arts Festival, which pays homage to Childs with performances of Dance at the Kimmel Center, films, a lecture by Jowitt, a class in Childs' technique, plus a conversation with Childs and composer Philip Glass (who wrote the score for Dance and also collaborated with Childs on the groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach).

"The interplay between them is so beautiful," says Stuccio of the synchronicity of Childs' choreography, Glass' music and LeWitt's film. "It's these three titans of American contemporary art minimalism and an example of some of the best interdisciplinary work I've ever seen."

Childs rehearsed her current cast to be precise — "about the steps and the relationship between the space and the music," she says — "it has to synthesize." Still, she allows each dancer to project a personal persona. "I like them to stay individual. But also they're concentrating so much, they can't think about anything much except the music and where they are in the steps. So that gives them a concentration and a kind of intensity that's really special."

Dance is a creative composition of mathematical precision that explores the possibilities of a minimalist pattern through movement. However, as Jowitt observes, "When you think of minimal stuff, you tend to think of minimal motion. With Childs' dances, the actual lexicon of steps may be fairly reduced, but it's extremely aerobic and vigorous. They move with full energy."

Back when it premièred, Dance was radical. People walked out of the show, yelling, "This is not dance!" But times have changed, and what was once perceived as shocking and rebellious is now appreciated for its beauteous virtuosity.

Childs appreciates the opportunity to tour the work once more. She's well aware certain people may watch it and think it's pretty much the same thing for an hour. "That's true," she says. "Or you could pay attention to the variations. And the music changes all the time ... there's no actual repetition. Every time something comes back, it's in a different way."

(d_kasrel@citypaper.net)

Dance runs Sept. 10-12, $25-$30, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., livearts-fringe.org.