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Drafting Interior Techniques

Drafting Interior Techniques

Steve Paxton

Drafting Interior Techniques

Steve Paxton

Curator: Romain Bigé e João Fiadeiro

American dancer, choreographer and improviser Steve Paxton (b. 1938) has continuously been shaping the face of dance for more than six decades. Starting his dance career in the 1950s, he danced with José Limon and the Cunningham company, contributed to found the Judson Dance Theater and post-modern dance, invented two dance techniques (Contact Improvisation and Material for the Spine), while writing extensively about movement (more than a hundred articles since 1970) and relentlessly performing improvisation around the world.

Drafting Interior Techniques is the first retrospective look taken at his work and legacy. It is built around one of Steve’s obsessive questions: what is my body doing when I am not conscious of it? This question is a mantra through the exhibition, which offers the visitors to wander into the dancer’s workshop, not only to see dance, but to look at movement with the eyes of a dancer.

João Fiadeiro apresenta a exposição de Steve Paxton na Culturgest
Steve Paxton cycle at Culturgest
© Stephen Petegorsky. Steve Paxton at Joy of Movement Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, january 1978.

9 MAR
– 21 JUL 2019

Gallery
4€
Free entry on sundays Tuesday to Sunday 11:00–18:00
 

PROLONGED UNTIL JUL 21

GALLERIES OPENing HOURS

Tuesday to sunday 11:00 – 18:00

LUNCH GUIDED TOUR

3 APR 12:00
8 MAY and 5 JUN 13:00
WITH Ana Gonçalves

SATURDAY GUIDED TOUR

9 MAR 17:00
WITH João Fiadeiro and Romain Bigé
27 APR, 18 MAY
WITH Ana Gonçalves
13 JUL, 17:00
WITH Patrícia Freire

WEEKLY classes contact-improvisaTION

MAR – JUL 
Every Sunday 11:00 – 13:00
WITH Rita Vilhena (20 pax / no reservations)

GUIDED TOURS

Guided tour in portuguese Information and reservations
Tel. +351 21 761 90 78
culturgest.participar@cgd.pt

About Steve Paxton cycle

American choreographer, dancer and improviser Steve Paxton, born in 1939, has been continuously shaping the face of dance over the last six decades. Having started his career in the 1950s, Paxton danced with José Limon and Merce Cunningham. He was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theatre, the source of various collective creations that have laid the roots of postmodern dance. He was also a founding member of the New York-based improvisation collective Grand Union. He is the inventor of two techniques – Contact Improvisation and Material for the Spine – and has worked together with several visual artists (such as Robert Rauschenberg), also leaving his distinctive mark on the art world. Throughout his life, Paxton has been writing extensively about movement (he has produced more than 100 articles since 1970) and working tirelessly on performing improvised and choreographed works all over the world.

His work has influenced many choreographers and dancers, who have inherited the obsessions that characterize his work: the analysis and integration of everyday movements (such as walking), the importance of touch, weight and balance, and an openness to the non-technical body.

In Portugal, Steve Paxton and the Judson Dance Theatre’s way of thinking had a decisive influence on many of those taking part in the movement that has come to be known as the New Portuguese Dance, and, in various ways, shared their concerns about the relationship between art and everyday life.

Based on this perspective, Culturgest presents the Steve Paxton cycle, which has as its main axis an exhibition curated by João Fiadeiro and Romain Bigé and an evening of performances from the 1960's to present day. But the Paxton programme doesn’t end here. The transverse nature of his work is further expressed in a series of five talks (the first of them given by Paxton himself) and three workshops about Contact Improvisation and Material for the Spine, with the involvement of schools and the transformation of the exhibition space into a performative arena.

 

Relation with dance schools


In the frame of the Steve Paxton exhibition, Culturgest approached some dance schools and research centers in Lisbon in order to make sure that the body of work of one of the most influential thinkers-makers from dance history would not go unnoticed. This collaboration will start with a series of lecture-demonstrations that Romain Bigé and João Fiadeiro, curators of the exhibition, will give on Steve Paxton’s legacy in each of the associated schools/centers. Then it unfolds with an intensive and continuous presence of students and researchers in the exhibition space (with a free pass) so they can deepen their individual research on Paxton’s work. Finally, we have encouraged the schools/centers to temporary dislocate some of their classes and initiatives into the space of the exhibition so the space will be “occupied” by practitioners and art researchers. 

Temporada Portugal-França 2022

Institut Français

Coproduction

Institut Français du PortugalEmbaixada França em Portugal
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