Museums are increasingly integrating dance into their gallery spaces, presenting live performances by leading choreographers, including Ralph Lemon at the Walker Art Center and Sarah Michelson at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. As a recent New York Times article notes, contemporary dance is “gaining a measure of parity with the visual arts in museums.”
Here, poet, critic, and teacher Claudia La Rocco addresses the question “should we dance in museums?” She argues that in order for dance to be thoughtfully integrated into the artistic life of the institution, it must be “contextualized in a larger curatorial framework.”
Claudia La Rocco’s work frequently revolves around interdisciplinary collaborations and performances. She is the author of The Best Most Useless Dress (Badlands Unlimited, 2014), and a regular contributor to Artforum and The New York Times. She founded ThePerformanceClub.org and is a member of Off the Park Press. A faculty member of the School of Visual Arts’ graduate program in Art Criticism and Writing, La Rocco also teaches at Stanford University.
