Knees, Schools, Urges
a performance programme and exhibition at The Box, June 3 - July 9, 2022
curator, Jennie MaryTai Liu, co curator, Alana Frey
presented by Mara McCarthy and The Box, LA
producer, Pieter Performance Space
Milka Djordjevich, Sebastian Hernandez, Jmy James Kidd, taisha paggett &
Tanya Brodsky, Jessa Calderon, Neha Choksi, Alison D’Amato, iris yirei hu, & Peter Hernández
Developed with a Mike Kelley Foundation Award
with additional funds from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
Knees, Schools, Urges invited ten dancers /artists to grapple with documented and undocumented histories of dance and movement in the place now known as Los Angeles. An examination of embodied lineage and learning, absence of archived history of dance and dancers in the region, and the undersung work that historically minoritized artists have done in the field, the project looks both forward and backward, approaching the timeframe of the exhibition as an opportunity to document and create an archive which acknowledges the value of short-term local history as an ongoing project for present and future generations.
Newly commissioned performances, installations, moving image, textiles, and music explore embodied lineage and transmissions of learning within contexts of colonization and immigration. Artists come to find themselves as both descendants and ancestors, positing their work as conveyors of corporeal, sensual, theoretical, and spiritual knowledge tumbling back and forth within non-linear, non-secular relations of past, present, future.
The project considers dancing, making, envisioning, relating, and survival itself as historical methods. Taking a corporeal and sensual approach to “doing history,” dialogue and educational programs facilitated by dance artists, organizers, and scholars included improvisation, meditation, working within movement scores, and responding to poetic prompts—unearthing possibilities of transformation and deepened relation across bodies and generations.
