Lucinda Childs: ‘In the US, my work wasn’t something people could deal with’

From being taught by Merce Cunningham to collaborating with Philip Glass, the choreographer who helped shape the New York dance scene – now ‘81 on paper’ – looks back

“There was a famous performance in Minneapolis of my piece Dance,” says Lucinda Childs. “Practically no one was in the audience by the end.” She laughs. “We had the same with a Robert Wilson play I was in. We’d look out and see … ‘Well, his sister is there, but that’s about it.’”

The choreographer’s work, including the minimalist classic Dance (1979) set to the music of Philip Glass, the John Adams-scored Available Light (1983) and in Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), may not have always been appreciated by everyone – “in the US it wasn’t something people could deal with” – but she’s now recognised as a seminal figure. She’s most associated with the Judson Dance Theater and New York’s downtown arts scene of the 60s and 70s, a hub of radical musicians, artists, performers, cheap loft studios and experimental happenings. But Childs has worked steadily since, particularly in Europe, and latterly as an opera director, too.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3h4Q9YA