AUTUMN PREVIEW DANCE
Return to form Tramway will celebrate four decades of Yvonne Rainer’s radical career in dance and film, writes Kelly Apter
L ike many artforms, dance underwent a minor revolution in the 1960s – much of it taking place at a church in New York’s Greenwich Village. In 1962, ballet was beginning to lose its stranglehold on the genre as modern dance found its feet. But for some artists, it didn’t go far enough. Seen as the birthplace of post-modern dance, Judson Memorial Church was home to a collective of choreographers, musicians and visual artists who thought as far outside the box as possible.
And if Judson was the birthplace, then Yvonne Rainer was one of its mothers. Along with other celebrated dancer/choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Deborah Hay, Rainer developed a whole new way of looking at dance.
Rainer. ‘Not only for me but a whole generation that matured in the 60s and 70s in a climate of protest to war, sexism, racism and class inequities.’ After devoting a quarter of a century to film, Rainer was coaxed back to dance by none other than Mikhail Baryshnikov. He commissioned Rainer to create a work for his White Oak Project (a true highlight of the 2001 Edinburgh International Festival) and she has created several new works since – two of which will be presented at Tramway.
‘Returning to dance was a big relief,’ says Rainer. ‘It’s my first love. I’m a technophobe, never at ease with the equipment and hierarchies and technical dictates of feature film production. Working with offers immediate gratification and clarity, the frustrating negotiations of the apparatus and post- production crises.’ without
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One of the most exciting aspects of the Tramway line-up live performance of Tr i o A, Rainer’s signature work created in 1966. It features key aspects of her style – most notably no eye contact with the audience and to spectacular displays of technique’ – and will be danced by Rainer herself at the age of 75. ‘an aversion
is What was viewed as radical in the early 60s, however, almost commonplace today – which makes the ‘career survey’ at Glasgow’s Tramway all the more fascinating. Viewed through a 21st century lens, how will Rainer’s work be perceived by a modern audience?
Comprising 22 works spanning four decades, Yvonne Rainer: Dance and Film will capture not only what Rainer achieved in those pivotal early days, but how she has matured as an artist. Over six days, we’ll see seven feature films, an evening of shorts, two pieces of live dance, and a lecture and book event. Despite her achievements as a choreographer, Rainer turned her back on dance in 1975 and immersed herself in film, giving voice to terrorism, lesbian relationships, breast cancer and the menopause. Did she feel a responsibility to tackle such under-explored subjects? ‘The “unspoken” has certainly been one of the many challenges,’ says
41 MUSIC There’s a belting electronic
music line-up at the O2 ABC on Sun 21 Nov: Caribou (pictured), Nathan Fake, James Holden and Rocketnumbernine have all been handpicked by Four Tet to appear at this special gig.
30 THE LIST 9–23 Sep 2010
‘RETURNING TO DANCE WAS A BIG RELIEF. IT’S MY FIRST LOVE.’
Having trained with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, Rainer entered the dance world with great capability – something which has changed and adapted over the years. ‘My recent dances have been the result of looking for material outside of the invention potential of my ageing body,’ she says. ‘In short, my resources are quite different from those I started out with.’
Yvonne Rainer: Dance and Film, Tramway, Glasgow, Tue 5–Sun 10 Oct.
42 FILM The concluding part of
Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millenium trilogy will hit cinemas from Thu 25 Nov. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest wraps up the tale of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander – now let’s see if David Fincher can do better in his Daniel Craig- starring version.
43 FILM He knows the score . . . He
44 MUSIC Matt Beringer and the two
45 MUSIC Biffy Clyro further-
gets the women . . . and kills the bad guys! Machete (pictured), the film that started off as a made-up trailer in the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse project, is finally ready to be unsheathed on Fri 26 Nov. It’s time for some Mexploitation, baby!
sets of Dessner and Devendorf brothers – collectively known as indie post-punkers The National – are leaving their Brooklyn home
to play the O2 Academy on Fri 26 Nov. They’ll be promoting most recent album High
Violet, which has earned
cement their status as Scotland’s biggest band by selling out not one but two nights at Glasgow SECC on Fri 26 & Sat 27 Nov, as well as performing a gig the night before at the similarly-spacious Aberdeen Exhibition Centre. As if we needed any more proof.
them significant critical acclaim.
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