Dance

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In Dance (1979) by Lucinda Childs, one of the icons of postmodern dance, we dive deep into American dance history. Childs created Dance in collaboration with composer Philip Glass and artist Sol LeWitt. The performance consists of five parts, three of which are being revived here: the first and the third, choreographic passages for four men and four women, and the second, a solo originally danced by Childs herself.
  
In the three parts, the dance faithfully follows Glass’ minimalist dance music as if it were a visual rendering of it. The dancers take over the space meticulously in geometric figures and precise counting, adding very subtle variations to the recurring patterns. The stage decor is a black and white film by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, in which various passages from the choreography are echoed. It's as if the filmed dancers are a part of the corps de ballet. Here Childs produces a performance in which dance, film and music interlock perfectly.

• Lucinda Childs (b. 1940) began her dance career in 1963 as one of the original members of the Judson Dance Theatre in New York. Ten years later she founded her own company. In 1976 she worked for the first time with composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson in the legendary Einstein on the Beach. Childs made history with her minimalist dance and her collaboration with artists like Sol LeWitt, composers like Philip Glass and John Adams, and designers such as architect Frank Gehry.

The Washington Post, The San Francisco Examiner, the Guardian and Time Out magazine in London proclaimed Dance one of the best dance performances of 2011.

‘The prolific Lucinda Childs is like a black cocktail dress. She never goes out of style.’ – The New York Times

 ‘Divine revival of the 1979 piece by postmodern dance icon Lucinda Childs, with its Philip Glass score and Sol LeWitt projections. It was, put simply, lots of dancers leaping back and forth across the stage in a repetitive manner – but that added up to the kind of wonderful, mesmerising, joyful minimalism that made you (well, me) want to start leaping as well.’  - Lyndsey Winship, Time Out

‘You watch the dancers’ subtle changes in
accent amid unflagging speed, how they stream across the stage with a
thrilling constancy that starts to feel eternal, and you think, yes,
this is the essence of dance.”  - The Washington Post

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Sol LeWitt - Colors
21/06>14/10/2012 M – Museum Leuven, Vanderkelenstraat 28, 3000 Leuven - www.mleuven.be

M – Museum Leuven presents for the first time in Belgium over twenty color wall drawings by American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). Conceived through instructions and diagrams, the monumental works are executed directly on the walls by professionally trained drafters from the LeWitt studio and local assistants. The works selected span LeWitt’s entire career, from the earliest drawings in pencil or crayon lines to works using India ink or acrylic.
In collaboration with M, Centre Pompidou-Metz presents a wall drawing retrospective in black-and-white.