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Score for Lucinda Childs' Melody Excerpt. This score represented all the possible pathways that each dancer may traverse during the course of performing Melody Excerpt, along with stage measurements in feet. In this version the dimensions are 32 by 28 feet. Each dancer is represented by a discrete color. In her archive Childs refers to this as a “grid.” Courtesy of Lucinda Childs.

A Return to Simple Movement: Lucinda Childs and Judy Hussie-Taylor in Conversation

A Return to Simple Movement: Lucinda Childs and Judy Hussie-Taylor in Conversation

At the February launch of the Center’s new multimedia online publication, A Steady Pulse: Restaging Lucinda Childs, 1963–78, Lucinda Childs and Judy Hussie-Taylor, executive director of Danspace Project, discussed Childs’ career and artistic influences.

In the video that follows, Childs reflects on her influential years studying at Sarah Lawrence College, and the immense impact of Merce Cunningham on her creative development. “Merce Cunningham arrived in 1959 and everything changed because of just the one class with [him]…suddenly I realized where I wanted to be and who I wanted to study with.”

Lucinda Childs reflects on her influential years studying at Sarah Lawrence College, and the immense impact of Merce Cunningham on her creative development. Filmed at Danspace Project in New York on February 21, 2015.

In this second video, Childs recalls a transitional time in her career. “At a certain point, the Judson [Dance Theater] work reached, I think, for many of us, a little bit of a dead end,” Childs says. “I wanted to go back to simple movement material and not necessarily governed by whether or not it was in or outside the realm of traditional dance.”

At the launch of A Steady Pulse: Restaging Lucinda Childs, 1963–78, Childs recalls a transitional time in her career. Filmed at Danspace Project in New York on February 21, 2015.

Explore A Steady Pulse here.
View photos from the Steady Pulse launch on our website and Facebook page.