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Trio A

“The kind of dance I did was about dancing, about the body.”

–Yvonne Rainer

Beginning in the 1960s, dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer became interested in movement as a functional and objective exercise, stripping dance from its traditionally aesthetic and expressive qualities. Originally choreographed in 1966 as part of a larger work entitled The Mind Is a Muscle and performed here by Rainer herself, Trio A stipulates continuous movement and an absence of interaction or eye contact with the audience. The result is a piece focused on the flow of ordinary gestures, examining the action itself as the aim instead of the theatricality of performance.

Image: Trio A, 1978, Yvonne Rainer, digital video transferred from 16 mm, Duration: 10:30 minutes, Modern Art Acquisition Fund, 2017.13, © Artist or Artist’s Estate.