Wow – Danspace Project has set the bar for New York dance programming incredibly high with its fantastic PLATFORM 2010 program, in which two remarkable artists – Ralph Lemon and Juliette Mapp – were invited to curate a series of new, commissioned performances for presentation at Danspace. Ralph Lemon has already presented most of his excellent i get lost program, and now it’s on to Juliette Mapp’s Back to NYC. The brochure for the latter just hit mailboxes today, and the line-up is absolutely terrific.

See the full list of performances here – we especially recommend Performa 09 artist Deborah Hay’s first solo performance in several years, No Time to Fly, a new work by David Thomson called 1959, that features text by writers including Glenn Ligon and Clarinda Mac Low, and Paige Martin’s mysterious PANORAMA, the publicity materials for which feature nothing but a campy 1970s family portrait and the instructions “Intended for mature audiences. Photo-taking allowed. Please arrive by 7:45 PM.” I have no idea what this means, but I’ll be there!

And we’re very excited that Performa 07 artist and fountain of wisdom Elaine Summers will be featured in not one, not two, but THREE events! From March 18-20 Danspace will present a retrospective evening of some of Elaine’s multimedia works–including the 1969 landmark Crow’s Nest, which was originally made for the Guggenheim Museum and features a beautiful score by Deep Listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. Then, on March 20, there will be a two-part conversation event at the New Museum–the first part featuring Elaine in conversation with Pauline Oliveros, and the second part a roundtable with Elaine and several of the other Back to NYC artists. Do not miss this event–Elaine is an absolute delight in on-stage conversations and panel discussions, and has so much to share with contemporary artists of a younger generation continuing to work in New York. During Performa 07, Elaine participated in an on-stage conversation with Meredith Monk after one of the Dance After Choreography film screenings, and the two of them together were so much fun several audience members suggested that they get their own television show!

Elaine Summers is a true treasure in the New York dance and performance world, and Juliette Mapp and Danspace Project deserve enormous credit for programming her work along with the work of the many other outstanding artists in this series. Keep it up!
–Lana Wilson