YVONNE RAINER

The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project – Altered Annually is an ongoing work-in-progress that interweaves formal dance with diverse texts dealing with ageing, mortality, personal histories and material quoted from a variety of sources, e.g., ancient Middle Eastern dynasties (Metropolitan Museum), paleontological findings (New York Times) and literature. These are intermittently read aloud by Rainer and the dancers. The power of language as a trajectory that runs parallel to the music (Gavin Bryars, Giovanni Paisiello) continues to be an important coordinate in Rainer’s work. All three elements – movement, music and texts – occasionally merge to produce a somewhat melancholic ambiance. The performers in Dust have been given the freedom to initiate and/or abort the movement phrases as they wish, making spontaneous decisions and exercising options throughout the 50-minute duration of the piece. The result is a structure that is seemingly random with unpredictable moments of unison, humour and startling convergences.

Choreography: Yvonne Rainer, with a little help from Honi Coles, Jane Dudley (via Sheron Wray), Isadora Duncan (via Carl Van Vechten), Fritz Lang, Michael Douglas Peters (via Michael Jackson), Nina Stroganova, Jacques Tati, Les Twins, et al, and, of course, with much help from the Raindears.
Choreographic Assistant: Pat Catterson
Performers: Pat Catterson, Emily Coates, Patricia Hoffbauer, Emmanuèlle Phuon, Yvonne Rainer, Keith Sabado, David Thomson.
Music: Edvard Grieg: Arietta and Gavin Bryars: The Sinking of the Titanic
Lighting Designer: Les Dickert
Costume: Juanita Cardenas
Sound Mix: Quentin Chiappetta

Quoted texts (in indeterminate order): Barack Obama, Maureen McLane, Harold Brodkey, Jean Luc Godard, Fredric Jameson, Alex Ross, Louise Bourgeois, Yvonne Rainer, D.H. Lawrence, wall inscriptions in the Islamic wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel Zalewski, Christa Wolf, Amiri Baracka, Donald Trump, et al.

Parallel activity

LECTURE-PERFORMANCE BY YVONNE RAINER
Tuesday 19 December, 7 pm
Venue: MACBA Auditorium
‘What’s so funny? Laughter and Anger in the Time of the Assassins’ is a compendium of jokes and lamentations around our current “revolting developments” in political and civic life.

This programme has been co-commissioned by Performa, New York.

Thanks to RoseLee Goldberg, Esa Nickle and Sasha Okshteyn of Performa, and USA Fellowships for their support.