Come meet Lou Forster, curator of the exhibition *Lucinda Childs—A Subversion of the Frame*, on the occasion of the launch of his book dedicated to this major figure in 20th- and 21st-century dance.
In Lucinda Childs’ creative process, writing and reading play a decisive role, whether she is devising her choreographies or conveying them to her dancers. The result is an archive consisting of choreographic notes, scores, diagrams, and stage directions. By studying these fascinating graphic artifacts and the dance practices that produced them, Lou Forster highlights a unique technical gesture: dancing with a page in hand. This gesture lies at the foundation of Lucinda Childs’s approach, as well as that of certain avant-garde movements.
In this seminal monograph, the choreographer’s work is thus repositioned within the interconnected history of modernities. The forms of reading and writing developed by Rudolf
Laban, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham—through the lens of Minimal and Conceptual art—challenge disciplinary hierarchies and compartmentalization. Childs’s postmodernist approach represents one of the most significant contemporary developments in this long-term project.
Lou Forster, an exhibition curator, dramaturg, and Ph.D. in art history, works at the intersection of the visual arts, dance, and the humanities and social sciences. He initiated a major project that led to the rediscovery of Lucinda Childs’s graphic work. He is a research associate at the Center for Research on the Arts and Language at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and director of the Heritage, Audiovisual, and Publications Department at the National Center for Dance.
Following this event, the bookstore L’Intranquille will have copies of the book available for purchase.
In Lucinda Childs’ creative process, writing and reading play a decisive role, whether she is devising her choreographies or conveying them to her dancers. The result is an archive consisting of choreographic notes, scores, diagrams, and stage directions. By studying these fascinating graphic artifacts and the dance practices that produced them, Lou Forster highlights a unique technical gesture: dancing with a page in hand. This gesture lies at the foundation of Lucinda Childs’s approach, as well as that of certain avant-garde movements.
In this seminal monograph, the choreographer’s work is thus repositioned within the interconnected history of modernities. The forms of reading and writing developed by Rudolf
Laban, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham—through the lens of Minimal and Conceptual art—challenge disciplinary hierarchies and compartmentalization. Childs’s postmodernist approach represents one of the most significant contemporary developments in this long-term project.
Lou Forster, an exhibition curator, dramaturg, and Ph.D. in art history, works at the intersection of the visual arts, dance, and the humanities and social sciences. He initiated a major project that led to the rediscovery of Lucinda Childs’s graphic work. He is a research associate at the Center for Research on the Arts and Language at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and director of the Heritage, Audiovisual, and Publications Department at the National Center for Dance.
Following this event, the bookstore L’Intranquille will have copies of the book available for purchase.
This text was translated by an AI.
