Platform 2021: The Dream of the Audience (May 15 – June 18, 2021), curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, is a digital Platform featuring acclaimed artists and past Platform curators, each with longstanding relationships to Danspace Project: Ishmael Houston-Jones, Okwui Okpokwasili, Eiko Otake with Joan Jonas, and Reggie Wilson. Each of the artists are receiving residency time in St. Mark’s Church and opportunities for live conversations. New short video works by the artists, created while in-residence at the church, will be screened during the Platform.

Each week of the Platform will feature:
Monday Archives: Special Danspace archival footage released on the Online Journal, Issue 12.
Friday Film Screenings: A new film premiere, filmed on site at Danspace Project. Film premieres on Zoom.

In two Conversations Without Walls, Lydia Bell and Kristin Juarez will activate these archives. The Journal will also include new written works by Writer-in-residence, Maura Nguyen Donohue.

Platform 2021 takes inspiration from a poem (see below)* by the late Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, in which Cha addresses the audience “as a distant relative.” “Although written in 1977, Cha’s text resonates with our current condition,” says Hussie-Taylor. “This Platform is an homage to audiences.”

Check out the Platform offerings below and register now for premieres and live conversations with the artists!

PLATFORM 2021 SCHEDULE

Saturday, May 15 at 7pm (ET): Platform Launch with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Reggie Wilson. Facilitated by Judy Hussie-Taylor.

Monday, May 17: On the Online Journal: Archival footage: Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez: Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd

Friday, May 21 at 5pm (ET): Film Premiere: Ishmael Houston-Jones

Monday, May 31: On the Online Journal: Archival footage: Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born: Sitting On a Man’s Head

Friday, June 4 at 5pm (ET): Film Premiere: Okwui Okpokwasili

Monday, June 7: On the Online Journal: Archival footage: Eiko Otake: A Body in Places & Joan Jonas’ Moving Off the Land

Monday, June 7 at 5pm (ET): Conversations Without Walls: Revisiting Eiko Otake’s A Body in Places and Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls’ Lost & Found Platforms with Lydia Bell & Kristin Juarez

Friday, June 11 at 5pm (ET): Film Premiere: Eiko Otake & Joan Jonas

Monday, June 14: On the Online Journal: Archival footage: Reggie Wilson: …they stood shaking while others began to shout

Monday, June 14 at 5pm (ET): Conversations Without Walls: Revisiting Reggie Wilson’s Dancing Platform, Praying Grounds and Owkui Okpokwasili’s Utterances From the Chorus with Lydia Bell & Kristin Juarez

Friday, June 18 at 5pm (ET): Film Premiere: Reggie Wilson

*Audience Distant Relative, Teresa Hak Kyung Cha (1977)

you are the audience

you are my distant audience

i address you

as i would a distant relative

as if a distant relative

seen only heard only through someone else’s

description

Special thanks to the Howard Gilman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support for Danspace Project’s 2021 Platform, and thank you to all our vital supporters.