Before coming back into the light and music and dancing (2014)

Choreography and performance: Abigail Levine

Duration: Length of exhibition

Before coming back in...  is a study of Alvin Lucier's Palimpsest

On nine canvases, write nine texts. As many times as the text is written, it must be erased. Once erased, the writing may begin again.

Before com­ing back in… trans­forms Alvin Lucier’s com­po­si­tion from a palimpsest heard to a palimpsest seen. Mov­ing from can­vas to can­vas, one for each stanza of the text, the dancers mark and unmark their surfaces in a symmetrical process that, nonetheless, accumulates a record of their work and movement. 

Before coming back in... is a translation. As with all translations, there is both a sense of loss and unintended creativity in the impossible endeavor of moving a work from one language to another.

Performance history:

Farm Project Space and Gallery, MA (July 7-14, 2014)

Video

Before coming back in... at farm gallery (July 2014)