“Space, Movement, and the Technological Body: A Tribute to the Bauhaus”

Dancer with architectural modifications

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus School of Design, the GSD hosts a night of screenings and performances that explore new bodily and spatial interfaces, including movement-based performances by students developed in collaboration with a course taught by Krzysztof Wodiczko and Ani Liu. This event will also feature a brief introductory presentation by choreographer and dance scholar Debra McCall.

 

Debra McCall: Choreographer, movement analyst, dance scholar and preservationist, McCall reconstructed Oskar Schlemmer’s Bauhaus Dances from his original notes and sketches which she discovered in Stuttgart. Andreas Weininger, the last surviving Bauhaus performer, advised her in the reconstructions which premiered in 1982 at The Kitchen, in 1984 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and toured nationally and internationally to critical acclaim, including the first Biennale de la Danse in Lyon. Her study of ancient Roman sculpture and pinakes informed Psyche’s Fourth Task, choreography based on the second century Metamorphoses of Apuleius, performed in fulfillment of an Advanced Design Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 1989. Most recently, she documented never-before-photographed ancient dance reliefs at the temple of Thillai Nataraja, Chidambaram, India as part of a Fulbright Professional and Academic Excellence Award. McCall is recipient of National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships and was a graduate faculty member of New York University and Pratt Institute where she was Mellon Lecturer. Director of the Movement Studies program of Art Therapy Italiana, Bologna, she is Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Movement Studies, New York City. McCall is founder of Performing Matters, an organization devoted to preserving endangered dance and bringing awareness to dancers at risk of censorship, arrest, or worse, for performing their art.

 

This event is organized in conjunction with the Harvard Art Museums and the exhibition The Bauhaus and Harvard.  In tandem with the exhibition, Harvard Art Museums celebrates the Bauhaus across campus with activities, tours, workshops, film screenings and more.  See the Harvard Art Museums website for the full lineup of programs.

Harvard University welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected] in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for American Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance. Please note that the University will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

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