A version of this chronology appears in Danspace Project’s gallery guide for SlowDancing/TrioA, a video installation by David Michalek in collaboration with Yvonne Rainer, held at Danspace Project over June 23 – July 1, 2017.

In 2011, I was researching the history of Judson Dance Theater as a part of Danspace Project’s Platform 2012: Judson Now, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor. I came across the note shown here, in which Yvonne Rainer responds to an invitation from Wendy Perron and then-director Cynthia Hedstrom to perform Trio A at Danspace Project as part of Perron’s Bennington College Judson Project, in a series of performances commemorating the 20th anniversary of Judson. In it, she notes “certain biographical specifics” to be included in the program, “namely, that she is a 47-year-old woman who keeps body (if not soul) relatively intact by means of a semi-weekly ballet barre plus fifteen minutes a day on the ‘Nordictrack.’” The intimacy and humor of this exchange serves as a reminder of how Danspace Project has provided a home to choreographers and dancers over multiple decades, through various stages in their life, training, daily rituals, and habits. Below is a brief but idiosyncratic timeline of Trio A to give some context to the ways in which Yvonne’s iconic work has intersected with Danspace Project’s 40+ year history.

— Lydia Bell, Danspace Project Program Director

Letter from Yvonne Rainer to Cynthia Hedstrom, 1981. Courtesy of the Jerome Robbins Dance division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

1934 Yvonne Rainer born in San Francisco, California

1956 Rainer moves to New York City

1962 First Judson Dance Theater concert on July 6, 1962

1965 Rainer composes the No Manifesto

1966 Trio A performed for the first time by David Gordon, Steve Paxton, and
Yvonne Rainer at Judson Memorial Church on January 10, 1966

1974 Danspace Project founded by Barbara Dilley and Larry Fagin, “to provide a performance space for those dancers from the Judson who were still working in New York… along with a new generation of innovative choreographer – performers.”

1982 Danspace Project co-hosts, with the Bennington College Judson Project, reconstructions of Judson Dance Theater performances New York Times calls a “squeaky-shoe version of Trio A.”

2012 Platform 2012: Judson Now at Danspace Project, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor

2015 Emily Coates is scheduled to teach Trio A as part of workshop during Platform 2015: Dancers, Buildings and People in the Streets. Emily can’t make it at the last minute and Rainer replaces her as a “substitute teacher.”

2016 Rainer honored at the Danspace Project Gala “for her defining contributions to postmodern dance from the founding of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962 to today.”

2017 Premiere of SlowDancing/TrioA at Danspace Project, a new video installation by David Michalek in collaboration with Yvonne Rainer