Each year we invite a prominent guest choreographer to create a new work with Lang students through our Guest Artist Residency, presented on a program with performance works by faculty and other guest choreographers, including the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Together, all these works demonstrate varied understandings of the body and virtuosity, and diverse approaches to choreography and performance.
Recent Guest Artist Residencies include:
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company - 2023
Continuous Replay, a seminal work in the legacy of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, was taught to Lang students by members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company within their Guest Artist Residency. Bill T. Jones served as a Presidential Visiting Scholar at The New School, 2022-2023.
Vicky Shick - 2022
For our first in-person production after the COVID-19 lockdown, guest artist Vicky Shick worked with students to create Bits and Pieces. Music included the eponymous composition by the Dave Clark 5, as well as tracks by Primal Scream, Patti Smith, and Lou Reed.
Dean Moss - 2020
Think about what you said
Dean Moss began working with Lang students for a multimedia work for live performance only to have to radically rethink the project when the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown began, upon which the students returned “mostly home into disbelief and ennui.” This video is a document of the work non-the-less achieved, a compendium of video works by the students that was facilitated and edited by Moss in collaboration with the students.
Susan Rethorst Restaging Project - 2019
For the Susan Rethorst Restaging Project choreographers and longtime Rethorst collaborators and performers Jodi Melnick and Vicky Shick constructed Rethorst Moments, culled from material from Rethorst’s Beau Regard (1989), Don’t Go Without Your Echo (1998), and Behold Bold Sam Dog (2002).
Reggie Wilson - 2018
Ishmael Houston Jones - 2017
Trisha Brown Restaging Project, Glacial Decoy Multiples - 2016
with Iréne Hultman
Glacial Decoy from 1979 is Trisha Brown’s first proscenium choreography. Glacial Decoy consists of an opening duet, a middle duet and a final quartet. In her restaging for the Lang students former Trisha Brown Company member Iréne Hultman omitted the middle duet and reworked the opening duet and quartet. Glacial Decoy Quartet Multiples is performed without the original sets and costumes by Robert Rauschenberg. Instead, through an exciting collaborative project with Parsons School of Fashion, costumes for the Trisha Brown Restaging Project were created by students from Parson’s Creative Technical Studio Classes taught by Andrea Katz in the BFA in Fashion Program.
Trisha Brown, one of the most important innovators of dance to emerge from the postmodern era, first came to public notice when she began showing her work with the Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. Along with like-minded artists including Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and Simone Forte, she pushed the limits of what could be considered appropriate movement for choreography thereby changing modern dance forever.
Sarah Michelson - 2015
During this guest residency, students worked alongside Sarah Michelson as she "struggled to once again consider how to make a dance." The residency investigated how the execution possibilities of seemingly simple and stark movement can raise important questions regarding work ethics, industry, labor, aesthetics, ego and performance. Lang students grappled alongside Michelson with "what could be worthy or important enough to replace emptiness." The developed work was presented in a completion event in Studio 001, the on-campus studio in which the course met throughout the semester.
This project marked the final of a three-course engagement with Michelson and her work and working methods: through a Studio Research course, a Choreographic Research course, and finally this Guest Residency.
Eiko - 2014
Private Body / Public Place
Eiko worked with Lang students on a movement installation performed by students in the lobby of Parsons, The New School for Design on Fifth Avenue at 13th Street. On April 14 and 21, 2014 each student chose a window and made a commitment to be seen for two hours.
Two weeks later the students performed a movement installation, A Nuisance, in the lobby of New York Live Arts while the audience arrived for the Lang Dance Spring performances. For the NYLA performances Eiko asked the students: "Do you dare to be a nuisance, while attending to your own blooming?"
John Jasperse - 2013
Trisha Brown Restaging Project - Line Up with Talking plus Motors - 2012
with Carolyn Lucas, Cori Olinghouse, and Laurel Tentindo
This restaging project used Line Up (1976) as a choreographic frame to examine principles and choreographic forms from Trisha Brown’s creative legacy, drawing from Set and Reset, Locus, Water Motor and Line Up, among other works. The working process involved "conjuring" some of Brown’s impulses and strategies from over the years as resources for the students to develop their own creative practices. What emerged was a creative dialogue between the Trisha Brown Dance Company - TBDC Choreographic Assistant and former dancer Carolyn Lucas, TBDC Archivist and former dancer Cori Olinghouse, and former TBDC dancer Laurel Tentindo - and students from the Eugene Lang College.
Luciana Achugar - 2011
Every breath we take, every move we make, you'll be watching us...
photos © Frank Mullaney