65°

Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York
August 13, 2015

Madeline Hollander’s dance-based works use familiar gestures culled from daily routines, from iPhone swipes and yoga poses, to the Transportation Security Administration’s “pat-downs;” from forms of menial labor to unconscious tics. Neither wholly scripted nor extemporaneous, Hollander’s choreography layers and splices movements into sequences that register and respond to the spatial, thermal, and temporal conditions of their audience and context.

In her new performance 65°, Hollander takes as a point of a departure the environmental standards that art institutions use for displaying and storing works of art. Using the prescribed temperature threshold of 65 degrees Fahrenheit as an axis for the performance, Hollander, in collaboration with three other dancers, establishes choreographed movement as the paradoxical object of conservation. In the otherwise empty gallery space, the moving bodies become the objects on display; their heat and energy set in motion a process of entropy whose rules gradually reveal themselves.

Performed by Katie Gaydos, Marielis Garcia, Madeline Hollander, & Jeremy Pheiffer.
Special thanks to Tamar Margalit, Stephen Froese & Sam Hart

(65° - max(t)°)  Choreography + Lights
(= max(t)°) Lights shut off + AC turns on + Choreography paused
(max(t)° - 66°)  Choreography remains paused + AC cools space
(= 65°) Choreography resumes + AC shuts off + Lights turn on
(Repeat)