Dance, dance, I said!—The Architecture of Dance
an exhibition exploring the nuanced and often complicated social, technological, and economic factors that affect one of the most age-old modes of human connectivity—dance.
Concept
Countless factors impact the look and feel—the characteristics—of an unforgettable dance scene: location, lighting, sound, scale, privacy, access, fashion, communication, city laws, the crowd, and of course—the music.
All these things can swirl and coalesce into something unexpected and magical that sustain a dance scene for years, even decades. They are what one might call the “architecture of dance”—the expansive social and physical infrastructures that hold and nurture a form of human connectivity like none other. As dance scenes past and present across the globe attest, the structures can forge something legendary from New York City’s Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, to Manchester’s Haçienda, London’s Fabric, Tokyo’s Womb, Ibiza’s Amnesia, Singapore’s Zouk, Paris’s Rex Club, and—Berlin’s Berghain.
The enveloping social and physical architecture of these scenes naturally shifts over time. Things change. With the undeniable ubiquity of social media for bringing together people combined with the rapidly transforming social and economic conditions of cities, the quality and quantity of dance scenes also change. While some indicators like the omnipresence of social media and the scarcity of cheap rents in urban centers may point to dance becoming an endangered species, others prove quite the opposite.
Dance, dance I said! would examine dance as a necessary, even urgent, social form for coming together. The exhibition and accompanying program would use the architecture of dance as an anthropological tool, a lens through which to explore the many nuanced and often complicated social, technological, and economic factors in urban centers worldwide that either keep alive or endanger one of the most age-old modes of palpable human connectivity—dance.
Possible Film Program
Phil Collins, Tomorrow Is Always Too Long (2014)
Jeffrey Hinton, Hydraulic Disco (2014)
Alek Keshishian, Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Jennie Livingston, Paris Is Burning (1990)
Wu Tsang, Wilderness (2012)
Michael Winterbottom, 24 Hour Party People (2002)
Countless factors impact the look and feel—the characteristics—of an unforgettable dance scene: location, lighting, sound, scale, privacy, access, fashion, communication, city laws, the crowd, and of course—the music.
All these things can swirl and coalesce into something unexpected and magical that sustain a dance scene for years, even decades. They are what one might call the “architecture of dance”—the expansive social and physical infrastructures that hold and nurture a form of human connectivity like none other. As dance scenes past and present across the globe attest, the structures can forge something legendary from New York City’s Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, to Manchester’s Haçienda, London’s Fabric, Tokyo’s Womb, Ibiza’s Amnesia, Singapore’s Zouk, Paris’s Rex Club, and—Berlin’s Berghain.
The enveloping social and physical architecture of these scenes naturally shifts over time. Things change. With the undeniable ubiquity of social media for bringing together people combined with the rapidly transforming social and economic conditions of cities, the quality and quantity of dance scenes also change. While some indicators like the omnipresence of social media and the scarcity of cheap rents in urban centers may point to dance becoming an endangered species, others prove quite the opposite.
Dance, dance I said! would examine dance as a necessary, even urgent, social form for coming together. The exhibition and accompanying program would use the architecture of dance as an anthropological tool, a lens through which to explore the many nuanced and often complicated social, technological, and economic factors in urban centers worldwide that either keep alive or endanger one of the most age-old modes of palpable human connectivity—dance.
Possible Film Program
Phil Collins, Tomorrow Is Always Too Long (2014)
Jeffrey Hinton, Hydraulic Disco (2014)
Alek Keshishian, Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Jennie Livingston, Paris Is Burning (1990)
Wu Tsang, Wilderness (2012)
Michael Winterbottom, 24 Hour Party People (2002)
- Charles Atlas
- Martin Beck
- Bernadette Corporation
- Monica Bonvicini
- Marc Camille Chaimowicz
- Keren Cytter
- Moyra Davey
- Vaginal Davis
- Rachel Feinstein
- Sylvie Fleury
- Nan Goldin
- Andreas Gursky
- Anne Hardy
- K8 Hardy
- Peter Hujar
- Derek Jarman
- Hao Jingban
- (LA)Horde
- Greer Lankton
- Mark Leckey
- Ralph Lemon
- Josiah McElheny
- Marilyn Minter
- Jason Moran
- Giovanna Silva
- Lorna Simpson
- Frances Stark
- Wolfgang Tillmans
- Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca
- Samson Young
- Andreas Gursky