Museum Piece premiered in March 1965 at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. On a few occasions, it was performed under the title Screen.
Museum Piece
1965
Museum Piece in performance, Sunday, October 6, 2013, at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Dancer: Annie Wilson.
Museum Piece is a solo dance with text. The work begins with the soloist placing nine-inch dots on the floor in a pre-determined order. The colors of the dots are based on those in the pointillist painting Le Cirque by Georges Seurat. The text narrates the process of walking backwards between the dots, guided only by the use of a mirror, while simultaneously elucidating “the luminosity of color” and interpretations of the concept of “angle,” as well as referencing spectatorship in the painting.
October 4, 2013
FringeArts
Philadelphia
Cast
Megan Bridge /
Annie Wilson
Production collaborators
Lighting: Gregory Bain
“By choosing to work with Georges Seurat’s painting Le Cirque as a sounding board for this solo with the use of text, everything about it comes under consideration, including ways to magnify it, to deconstruct it, and to focus in on it from different angles. I was also able to include the audience [members] as they perform the same activity as the spectators in the painting. I have had wonderful discussions with performers Megan [Bridge] and Annie [Wilson] on how every detail in the solo is derived from information from the painting, and what we need to develop further to make this work for them as performers. (I recall admitting to them at one point that the whole thing is really quite insane.)”
—Lucinda Childs, 2013
Premiere: March 12, 1965
Judson Memorial Church
New York
First cast
Lucinda Childs
Subsequent dates of performances
April 23, 1990
Movement Research at Ethnic Folk Arts, New York,
performed as part of a series of benefits for Movement Research to offset a loss of funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Other artists performing included Trisha Brown Dance Company, Sara Rudner, Simone Forti, and others. The piece was performed under the title of Screen.
September 17, 2012
Judson Now Danspace Performance Platform 2012 (performed as Screen), New York
Performance history as of December 2014.
A different dance, titled Screen (1965), was performed on only one occasion, on May 23, 1965, at the Bridge Theater, New York.
Archival Media
