On January 16th from 3-7pm Performance Space 122, Martha Graham Dance Company and the New Museum will be co-presenting Excavation Site: Martha Graham U.S.A. at the Martha Graham Studios.
In this one-time-only dance event, a multigenerational group of performers from the Martha Graham Dance Company’s past, present and future will excavate their relationships to Graham and the underlying “movement forces” that bind them to one another, to Graham and to the Company.
Organized by Austrian choreographer and artist Michael Kliën, this piece bypasses the institutionalized social structures of the Company to uncover new paths of organization and potential between its participants. The work utilizes strategies of social choreography developed in collaboration with dramaturge Steve Valk, who has organized a complementary discursive component that will unfold alongside the performance in adjacent spaces.
Michael Kliën recently sat down to discuss his methodology, as well as this piece in particular:
“Excavation Site is creating these spaces and realms in which you can experience your own reality, your own situatedness vis-à-vis the other, and with yourself in the world, where you can give time and space to experience that and to unravel…things happen in this unravelling: how much flexibility can be achieved and how much this project can contribute to releasing some of the tension within an institution.”
Click below to hear the full interview. Be sure to wear headphones as the interview is quiet.
Click here for tickets and more information on Excavation Site: Martha Graham U.S.A.