History & Legacy

Questions of Practice: Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on Contextualizing Classical Works

Yannick Nézet-Séguin discusses the value that centuries-old works can offer contemporary listeners and how an orchestra can present a classical piece so that it remains dynamic and resists becoming a “statue.”

Questions of Practice: Curator Ruth Estévez on Why Some Performances Should Remain in the Past

Curator Ruth Estévez on why the practice of restaging may be both “interesting” and “dangerous.

Mind, Movement, and Memory: Douglas Crimp and Peter Eleey on Choreographer Trisha Brown

In conjunction with the recent Center-funded retrospective, Trisha Brown: In the New Body, we invited author and art critic Douglas Crimp and MoMA PS1's Peter Eleey to reflect on Brown's influential choreographic practice.

Transmitting Dance Across Generations: On the Making of A Steady Pulse: Restaging Lucinda Childs, 1963–78

Bill Bissell, Director of Performance, and choreographer Lucinda Childs discussed the collaborative research effort that led to the creation of the Center’s fourth danceworkbook.

"Pictures and Props:" An Excerpt from Barbara Kasten: Stages

Barbara Kasten: Stages curator Alex Klein explains the significance of staging and props in Kasten's work, in this catalogue excerpt.

From "An Art of Refusal: Lucinda Childs' Dances in Silence, 1973–78"

A Steady Pulse: Restaging Lucinda Childs, 1963–78 is a dynamic reexamination of the early dances of one of America's most influential contemporary choreographers. In this excerpt from the forthcoming multimedia online publication, dance critic and historian Suzanne Carbonneau reflects on beauty as refusal in Childs' work.

Again, In Another Time and Space

Patricia Lent of Merce Cunningham Trust, an experienced restager, along with theater-maker Richard Schechner, video/installation artist Sharon Hayes, and UC Berkeley professor and moderator Shannon Jackson, here explores the difficulties of recreating works of performance, and how the terms used to describe such acts—restaging, reconstructing, reenacting—vary across disciplines.

An Introduction to Restaging & Reconstruction

As interest in contemporary performance art grows, reconstruction and restaging have become critical methods in understanding the almost-lost moments of seminal early performances.

Questions of Practice: "What is Reenactment?"

Patricia Lent of the Merce Cunningham Trust, theater-maker Richard Schechner, and video/installation artist Sharon Hayes gather to discuss the question of reenactment in cultural practice, with UC Berkeley professor Shannon Jackson as moderator.

Questions of Practice: "What is Reconstruction?"

Legendary downtown theater artist Richard Schechner asks, "What's the difference between forgery and art," between "new" and "original?"