22: Choreographing Space
On dance, painting, and the construction of environments
Dear friends,
January is usually a quiet, introspective month, but for me it has become a time for dance. The winter season at New York City Ballet begins this month (tickets already in hand), though I was most eager to see a new piece by the cutting-edge choreographer Pam Tanowitz.
This week I attended “Pastoral,” choreographed by Tanowitz to music by Caroline Shaw, written in response to Beethoven’s Pastoral. The set design was by Sarah Crowner. I’ve been thinking a lot about the integration of dance and visual art. In my studio, I have pinned to my drawing board an image of Robert Rauschenberg’s set design for a Merce Cunningham piece “Summerspace”. I’m drawn to this idea of an all-encompassing environment, where dancers become moving elements within a larger composition, almost like movable pieces within a painting. Set and body merge fluidly into a single visual field.
Pastoral beautifully evoked the senses: the lushness of a leafy, shaded forest, the freshness of morning dew. In the music, you could almost smell wet leaves, oaky moss, the damp earth after rain. The lighting was perfectly matched to the music, at times evoking the sweet warmth of sunset or the cool light of misty dawn. The dancers, too, felt light and ethereal. The brightly colored costumes, designed by Reid Bartelme, flow in translucent layers and fade in saturation across the body. My guest and I remarked that they resembled exotic birds, moving through their daily rituals together. There was a delicious languor to the piece, something akin to a déjeuner sur l’herbe. I wished I could have watched it outdoors, in a leafy glade, rather than inside a black box theater in the middle of winter.
For that reason, the role of the set felt crucial: it needed to transport us away from our hard seats, allowing us to imagine ourselves in a distant forest, another environment. Crowner’s elements felt oddly rigid: reproductions of paintings that shifted across the stage and did not evoke a mood or immersion. The all-white stage and backdrop raised the question: were we meant to be in a gallery?? I couldn’t get past this dissonance between the set and choreography. I know it’s not fair to suggest a comparison between this piece and the artistic choices made by Rauschenberg for a completely different piece, but “Pastoral” is so sensorial, it is just asking for a bolder set design, something all-encompassing.
As I move into a new body of work, these questions are very much on my mind: how to create layers and depth, how to envelop the viewer in a world, how to allow one to get lost within spatial relationships. These are the questions that sustain me in the studio.
The relationship between dance and visual art is something I feel deeply connected to (I recently finished Jennifer Homans’s brilliant, monumental biography of George Balanchine), and it’s a subject I might expand upon here in the future. I’m still working through how this interest manifests in my own work, but at its core is the relationship of the body to space and memory. Our histories are shaped by how we move through space, and by how those movements are carried and translated in our minds. In the end, our lives are a daily choreography—and that is what artists like Pam Tanowitz so beautifully reveal.
Wishing you a beautiful week ahead.
An Invitation to View the Collection
Paintings from my latest series Variation in Red are now available for sale through my website.
You can also collect works directly by e-mailing me. I’d love to share the current catalogue and speak with you personally about any questions you may have. I feel this creates a more thoughtful and intimate collecting experience, built on real connection with both you and the work.
For all inquiries or to request the catalogue, please e-mail leticia.woukalmino@gmail.com
I hope your new year brings you peace and health and love, with plenty of art to sustain you.
Thank you for following along and for your interest in my paintings.
xx,
Letícia
Love that Summerspace image! Maybe set designs are in your future 😍