Restagings No. 1: Choreographing LeWitt (2017)
Choreography and performance: Abigail Levine
Sound Design: Dave Ruder
Duration: 25 hours
Fridman Gallery, NYC | July 23-27, 2017
Watching Abigail Levine dance/draw the 3744 lines making up Sol Lewitt’s 'Wall Drawing 56,' I was struck by the feeling that I was in a training camp for something essential toward fixing the present moment.
--Chloë Bass, Women & Performance
The 3,744 lines that comprise Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #56 (1970) take Abigail Levine twenty-five hours to complete, five hours of movement each day for five days. In a 12 x 12’ square, Levine performs the Wall Drawing one line at a time, following LeWitt’s instructions as he wrote them. As the drawing is performed, a sonic archive accumulates around it in a multi-channel sound installation in speakers spread throughout the space.
Choreographing LeWitt is the first work in the series Re-stagings which reads modern and postmodern visual artworks as scores for performance, decoding the choreographic logic and somatic ideas built into these works.
Press
"Restagings No. 1: Choreographing LeWitt." Chloë Bass. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory (Routledge).
"A Performance of Sol LeWitt’s Drawing Instructions.” Elisa Wouk Almino. Hyperallergic.
"Line by Line (by Line), Recreating a LeWitt." Siobhan Burke. The New York Times.
“Lining Up: Abigail Levine Performs at Fridman Gallery.” Eva Yaa Asantewaa. Infinite Body.
“Put This on your Radar—July 18, 2017.” Martha Sherman. Dance Log NYC.
Credits
Choreographing LeWitt was supported by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, a project grant from New Music USA. Residency support provided by Knockdown Center, Center for Performance Research (CPR), and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX).. Additional support provided by the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI).