Taking Up Room on the Floor
Exhibition curated by Dena Beard in collaboration with Jeriel Bey and Hannah Ireland. Videos by Siobhan Davies, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, the Swaggers, and others.
Friday, February 4 – Friday, March 18, 2011
Opening reception/TURFIN demo with Jeriel Bey p/k/a Wally Sparks and the Architekz
Friday, February 4, 2011, 7-10 pm
Taking Up Room on the Floor
Dance is brutal and direct. Flesh hits floor to mark the limits of space and the body in motion draws attention to its demands. In the transition from physical to cyberspace, dancers are seeding videos to international audiences that make new claims on embodiment. Taking Up Room on the Floor is an exhibition that moves between ideas of occupation in the parameters of the artist studio, the dance floor, the city street, and the Internet. With original work by Hannah Ireland that responds to YouTube choreography, TURFIN dance demonstrations by Wally Sparks and the Architekz, a dance battle hosted by the TURF Feinz, and videos by Siobhan Davies, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Francis Alÿs, Natalie Bookchin, Jeriel Bey, the TURF Feinz, the Swaggers, and others, Taking Up Room on the Floor is a conversation about strategies of takeover. We move through space by flying, surfing, flashing, walking, bouncing, tweeting, steering, and linking, falling into a living room via webcam, onto a street corner on 90th and MacArthur, into an artist’s Brooklyn studio, onto the dance floor. These artists exercise a discipline devoid of leotards and traditional audiences, taking over floors at the intersection of aesthetic and political space.
Strategies of Takeover
Sunday, February 27, 2011, 7-9pm
An event in conjunction with Taking Up Room on the Floor, Strategies of Takeover includes a silent video essay tracing occupational movements, from Vietnam War-era artist provocations to dance instigations at Black Panther rallies, TURF battles and R.I.P. demos, culminating with a discussion about the protests in Egypt. Bring your lawn chairs/BBQ supplies and join our roving narration as we occupy the sidewalk outside Royal NoneSuch!
GET ON THE ___________
Taking Up Room on the Floor closing event with Hannah Ireland
Friday, March 4, 2011 7-10pm
“Your body's in battle and your feet are the weapon” - Grandmaster Slice
To close Taking Up Room on the Floor, Hannah Ireland will present a new audio piece that engages with language around the dance floor and the way the body interfaces with it. GET ON THE ___________ examines the tone of the imperative tense in dance instruction and popular song lyrics. Come thaw your tootsies on the dance floor, mill about, and take up some room.
Taking Up Room on the Floor is curated by Dena Beard in collaboration with Jeriel Bey and Hannah Ireland. Videos by Siobhan Davies, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, the Swaggers, and others.
IMAGE CAPTION: Video stills (clockwise from upper right): Michelle Fletcher in Hannah Ireland’s The Proscenium; Anna Halprin in James Broughton’s The Golden Positions; The Score by Siobhan Davies; and TURF Feinz in YAK Films’ RIP Rich D.
