October 07, 2015

In the early 1960s, Judson Dance Theater ignited an explosion of experimentation that brought together visual artists, composers, poets and dancers—including the groundbreaking dance artists Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and others. Wendy Perron, a noted dancer/choreographer whose work has been performed at the Lincoln Center Festival, Jacob’s Pillow and across the world, as well as a member of the Trisha Brown Company in the 1970s, and the former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine, will visit Westphal on Tuesday, October 13 to discuss the lasting influence of Judson Dance Theater.  She’ll share rare images of works by the above-mentioned artists, as well as work by Robert Rauschenberg, Carolee Schneemann and others.

The Department of Performing Arts presents Judson Dance Theater: The Transformation of Modern to Contemporary Dance at 7:00pm on October 13 in the Mandell Theater (33^rd & Chestnut Streets). During the free-to-the-public lecture, Perron will discuss the legacy of this seminal collective which re-wrote the conventions of modern dance and which still reverberates today.

Perron is the author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer (Wesleyan University Press, 2013) and serves as editor-at-large at Dance Magazine. She has performed with dozens of independent choreographers and with her company, for which she’s made more than 40 works. She has taught at SUNY Purchase, Princeton, NYU, Rutgers, and the Five College Dance Department, and since the 1970s has contributed reviews and features to Village Voice, The New York Times, Ballet Review and others.

For more information about the event, please contact the Performing Arts Department at performingarts@drexel.edu.