New Dance and the Visual Arts, juin 2012, Londres
Talk : New Dance and the Visual Arts
Remembering British New Dance : a series of talks curated by Jonathan Burrows and Ramsay Burt, with guest speakers Rose English, Gaby Agis and Amanda Prince‐Lubawy
Choreographer Jonathan Burrows and dance historian Ramsay Burt present the first in a series of symposiums on Remembering British New Dance. The opening event will examine the relation between dance and visual art in the UK during the 1970s and 80s, revisiting a highly influential period of work.
New Dance was originally the title of a British magazine writing about innovative dance at a time when it was ignored by rest of the media, a title which gradually came to represent a whole range of performance practices. Many visual artists at that time, as feminist and art critic Lucy Lippard put it, were pursuing a process of dematerialising the art object, and some women in particular were turning to performance because, unlike conventional forms such as painting and sculpture, it was comparatively free of male dominance. At the same time, dance artists were expanding towards collaborative projects, multimedia performances, architecture and the visual arts, overlapping considerably with the performance art of the period.
New generations of dancers can now find far more information about the work of US dance artists like Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and Trisha Brown than they can about the work of their contemporaries in Britain. However the 1970s was a time when radical experiments in British dance were comparable to what was happening internationally, and were attracting the notice of audiences for the visual arts. This panel discussion will explore why dancers and visual artists at this time were drawn to similar ideas and concerns, and will consider its legacy.
Other talks in this series will take place at Sadler’s Wells on 7 June, and Chisenhale Dance Space on 20 June, each of which will feature different guest speakers and focus on a different aspect of British New Dance.
Dates - Friday 1 June
Times - 7.30 - 9.30pm
Tickets - Book a free ticket on 020 7091 9650
