For decades, the tumultuous period in art history that followed abstract expressionism has been explained through a proliferation of labels. Pop art and Earth art, minimalism and postmodernism, performance art and conceptual art — all these terms and more have been used in various attempts to organize the chaotic impulses that revolutionized the art world beginning in the late 1950s. With Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972, UCSB professors Bruce Robertson and Ninotchka Bennahum have overturned these labels in favor of a new interpretation of history that puts women, dance, California, and the “radical body” on an even footing with men, painting, New York, and the “anxious objects” of postmodern art.
It’s a daring and richly evocative revision that challenges received ideas while championing some of the most interesting and neglected work of the period in any medium. Fittingly for such an ambitious interdisciplinary project, their effort has required several approaches and multiple collaborators, including all three of the women who form the core subject of their study. The exhibition Radical Bodies at UCSB’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum, which opened January 14 and continues through April 30, includes more than 200 objects, from photographs and films of the dancers to drawings, letters, diagrams, and props that were key to these artists’ exploration of space and movement.
As part of its Dance Conference Weekend, the university will offer several opportunities to experience Radical Bodies in person. All three of the women — Halprin, Forti, and Rainer — are coming to Santa Barbara for a series of events that includes a film screening, an all-day conference on Friday, a reception Friday evening, and a pair of dance performances on Friday and Saturday nights. Friday’s 8 p.m. performance at UCSB’s Hatlen Theater features Rainer’s company dancing “The Concept of Dust,” her most recent work, and Saturday’s 7 p.m. program includes works by all three choreographers, with a portion of Halprin’s epochal “Parades and Changes” (1965) set on the UCSB Student Dance Company.