ART-PRESENTATION: Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin & Stephen Petronio

Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio, Swallow, 2016, Exhibition detail from Ally, produced in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum. Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, PhiladelphiaThe exhibition “Ally” navigates the gap between Art and Dance, is conceived and performed by Janine Antoni in collaboration with choreographer Stephen Petronio and movement artist Anna Halprin. Taking the form of performances, installation environments, videos, and sculptures, the exhibition occupies four floors of The Fabric Workshop and Museum

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: The Fabric Workshop and Museum Archive

For 40 years The Fabric Workshop and Museum in inviting  artists to create new work using experimental materials and techniques. “Ally” explores shifting configurations and possibilities between the three artists, at times drawing on all three and at other times pairing Antoni and Halprin, Antoni and Petronio, and Halprin and Petronio. Janine Antoni said about the exhibition  “I conceived of this project more than six years ago as a kind of retrospective of my art making, told through dance. t has evolved into a truly collaborative creation that allows us to find a way to continue making new work while looking back”. The exhibition comprises four projects: Rope Dance: is an improvised performance work instigated by Halprin, who presented a rope to Antoni and Petronio to be used as a tool to connect their bodies and draw lines through space. The concept is expanded, to include the participation of viewers as well. A wall-sized projection is screened in the gallery space, when the performance is not taking place, here, rather than documenting the dancers, the camera captures Halprin watching the process of a dance coming into form. (Performance, monthly, and installation, First Floor). The complex installation project “Swallow” aims to connect Antoni, Petronio, and the audience on a very basic human and symbolic level. Swallow began with the artist making a performance for invited ‘witnesses’ in which they each swallowed half of a 10-foot strip of cloth woven by the Museum. The recovered remnant of the cloth is housed in the visual centerpiece of the installation, a spot-lit elevated gold reliquary. Inspired by the form of a traditional monstrance, the shape of the reliquary echoes that of the human body. An ornate magnifying lens crowns the reliquary, inviting the viewer to peer down into the dual chambers at the point in the fabric where Antoni and Petronio met.  Across the room, visitors encounter a simple glass vitrine containing another piece of cloth, upon which has been screen-printed in graphite and saliva the only photograph of the swallowing ritual. (Installation, Second Floor).  Wearing a shimmery gold robe, a Venetian mask, and a pair of women’s pumps, Stephen Petronio performs “The Courtesan and the Crone”, a dance of seduction originally created by Halprin as a solo for herself in 1999. At its completion, Petronio hooks his golden robe to a rope attached to a red theater curtain. As the curtain descends, the costume rises. (Performance, monthly, and installation, Seventh Floor). Once a week, for 14 weeks Antoni performs “Paper Dance”, an improvised movement performance. Drawing on images and concerns that have long preoccupied her as an artist, Antoni uses rolls of brown paper originally employed by Halprin in her seminal work “Parades and Changes” (1965). These performances take place within an installed arena of many wooden packing crates containing works by Antoni. Each iteration calls for Antoni to begin by unpacking one of her earlier works from a crate. A ‘retrospective’ of Antoni’s previous works slowly emerges over the duration of the exhibition, with chosen works appearing, remaining for a week, then disappearing as they are re-packed into the installed crates. After executing this repetitive activity, Antoni enacts the improvised performance work with paper, shifting its content weekly in relation to the installation’s new assembly of her artistic history. When the performance is not taking place, a film of Halprin’s earliest version of “Parades and Changes” is screened amidst the crated works. The paper remnants of Antoni’s performances slowly accumulate over the course of the exhibition. (Performance, weekly, and installation, Eighth Floor).

Info: Curatorial Advisor: Adrian Heathfield, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Duration: 21/4-31/7/16, All performances are free, Due to seating limitations reservations are recommended for: Paper Dance,  Rope Dance,  Reservations are not required for: Courtesan and Crone, www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org

Stephen Petronio rendition of The Courtesan and the Crone by Anna Halprin, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Stephen Petronio rendition of The Courtesan and the Crone by Anna Halprin, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Stephen Petronio rendition of The Courtesan and the Crone by Anna Halprin, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Stephen Petronio rendition of The Courtesan and the Crone by Anna Halprin, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Anna Halprin, November 2015, Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Anna Halprin, November 2015, Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Janine Antoni, 2015, Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Janine Antoni, 2015, Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendano, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio, 2016, Photo: Carlos Avendano, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Janine Antoni in collaboration with Anna Halprin, Paper Dance, 2013, 20 April 2016 performance view from Ally, produced in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Janine Antoni in collaboration with Anna Halprin, Paper Dance, 2013, 20 April 2016 performance view from Ally, produced in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Photo: Carlos Avendaño, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin & Stephen Petronio, Rope Dance, 2015. Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin & Stephen Petronio, Rope Dance, 2015. Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

 

 

Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin & Stephen Petronio, Rope Dance, 2015. Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin & Stephen Petronio, Rope Dance, 2015. Photo and © Hugo Glendinning, Courtesy of the artists and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia