The remains of the Pillow's Doris Duke Theatre were memorialized in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art by visual artist Yve Laris Cohen. In conversation are exhibition curator Martha Joseph and two participants in related performance events, former Pillow Director Liz Thompson and Preservation Director Norton Owen.
The remains of the Pillow's Doris Duke Theatre were memorialized in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art by visual artist Yve Laris Cohen. In conversation are exhibition curator Martha Joseph and two participants in related performance events, former Pillow Director Liz Thompson and Preservation Director Norton Owen.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
NORTON OWEN: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow archives. I am Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it’s my pleasure to host this episode focusing on Yve Laris Cohen’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art entitled Studio/Theater. Here I am in conversation with Exhibition Curator, Martha Joseph and former Pillow Director, Liz Thompson with a future episode to feature Yve himself.
Well, here we are at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. And I am pleased to be here with Martha Joseph, who is the curator of the Studio/Theater exhibition here, as well as Liz Thompson, who was a transformative and longtime director at Jacob's Pillow, and my one-time boss. So, Martha, I wonder if we can start with you, if you can scope out for us, the the Studio/Theater exhibition and what exactly that is?
MARTHA JOSEPH: Of course. It's a pleasure to be in conversation with you both. Studio/Theater is an exhibition by Brooklyn based artist Yve Laris Cohen, that is currently on view in our Kravis Studio, which is the Museum of Modern Art's performance space, here on the fourth floor within the renovar (?) of our collection galleries. As an exhibition, it brings together the remains of the Doris Duke Theatre into a new transformative installation that Yve has created a sculptural installation that's on view during the day, and it stages a dialogue between these two theater spaces. The Doris Duke on the one hand, and the Kravis Studio, on the other hand. The installation then, is animated during weekly performances that happen on Wednesday nights over the course of the exhibition. And there are two distinct performances, one titled Preservation and one titled Conservation. And the performers include a cast of characters, including you both, that all have a relationship in one form or another to either Jacob's Pillow or the Museum of Modern Art in terms of their institutional history, their relationship to performance, and architecture as well.
NORTON OWEN: Well, thank you for, for really tracing that out, it's really, I have to say, it's remarkable to be here at the museum. And to have such a noteworthy piece of Jacob's Pillow history here in the building with us. It is quite moving, to have this piece of architecture, this remnant from the remains of the fire, to be present with it and to be present with it 150 miles away from Jacob's Pillow and and recognize that everything that we're experiencing right now, is, of course, a direct result of that fire. We would not be sitting here at this moment, if it hadn't been for that, for the fire and everything that has transpired afterwards. I wonder, though, you know, Liz, your presence in the performance is so much about the beginnings of the theater. And, you know, it's very clear, I think, to everyone that the theater would not have existed had it not been for you. And so your role here in talking about that is really moving. And it's really it, it's, it's fundamental, let's say, because the none, again, none of this would have existed, had you not birthed that theater. I wonder if you could say something… I know you talk about it every two weeks as part of the performance. But if you could reflect some on that building, and your role in it?
LIZ THOMPSON: Well, my mission when I came to the Pillow was to disrupt the kinds of artists that I was interested in: Ishmael Houston-Jones and Fred Holland and Blondell Cummings and Mel Flemin, were my friends and co-workers in a way. And I performed in studios and not in studios in lofts. And that was my milieu and dance there, a workshop and Judson and that didn't exist at the Pillow. I mean, what was presented and what audiences were used to were good solid dance, you know? Um, you've heard me say this before, but my husband Clive Thompson danced with Alvin Ailey, and I walked around in lofts and my kids used to say mommy walks and daddy dances. And that's really what the Pillow audience expected. They wanted pirouettes and grand jetés. And, you know, people like Ain Gordon was talking, my gosh, and sitting and standing. And that was dance. And so how to uh make that happen at the Pillow was really my challenge. And it started with building the Inside Out platform uh because uh I figured if people didn't like what they were looking at, they could look at the trees moving in the wind and the birds and they could get up and leave because it was outside. And after that, let's see, we did Splash, which was a two -week festival within the festival, where we used all of the studio spaces. It was very low tech, but it was very dense with marvelous artists. Who I could not present in the Ted Shawn Theater because we needed every dime from the revenue from that theater.
NORTON OWEN: Yeah, the Splash performances were really the first time I think that you started to be able to program the kinds of artists that you really believed in, even though I mean, you had put Trisha Brown in the Ted Shawn Theatre….
LIZ THOMPSON: Yeah but Trisha, you know, that wasn't the Trisha Brown of the Ruth piece that I was in, where we passed movement from one to another, on different rooftops in Manhattan, or Joe climbing over the side of a building, or Trisha walking around the column in a museum. It was, you know, it was Trisha Brown moving it would, in what she was, like, kind of clastic about in those days was the kind of movement to kind of release and soft flowing movement, which was just as difficult as contracting and releasing, and the audiences could get into that. Of course, just a side remembrance here: Paul Donna, who was Chairman of the Board when I got there, just asked one thing of me and that was please don't present Merce Cunningham, who of course I presented, but didn't fill the house. [Owen: Right] You know, so it was necessary to create something, another theater. And it's interesting that a very illustrious group of architects who adjudicated the national competition that we ran, chose a barn-like structure, which thrilled me because it didn't impose anything visibly new on what I had come to feel it was Stonehenge. I mean, I thought the Pillow as it existed was very dear to me. And so this building was built beyond what existed and didn't look threatening at all. And be worthy the who enter here [Laughter] And I was able to then begin to program what I loved and it served…You know, it's interesting, because I read a line in the New York Times that said, bemoaning the loss and saying that was the center of creativity at the Pillow. That pleased me a lot, because that's what it was meant to be. And over the years now, other things can be presented in the Ted Shawn, because there's audience now for it.
NORTON OWEN: But still having a theater of that scale is something I can certainly say that we we keenly miss not having that at this point in time.
LIZ THOMPSON: Yeah, it was much less pressure for the artists and for the audience. And I don't think that the new building is going to be that. It is going to be of its time as was The Studio Theatre when I built it, because it's going to reflect all the technology. And I think if they were really going to reflect the time they build an apartment house where people could be...[Laughter]
NORTON OWEN:...Well that may be coming to
LIZ THOMPSON:...in their individual rooms creating, you know, new forms of communication. No, but really, I'm sad that we can't have both, quite frankly. And, you know, the irony is, we built that theater with all the mechanisms, all the failsafe mechanisms for fire, including, you know, water and the bells and whistles that the alarms. And it's ironic that that they all failed.
NORTON OWEN: Well, of course, it's part of this project, we have a Beckett fireman as who is taking part in these presentations at MoMA. I wonder if Martha if you can say a bit more about this. This is such an unusual artwork, I realize of course, that you're in that the the area of moment that you're in deals with performance. But I wonder if you could say something about how, how this fits in at a place like MoMA?
MARTHA JOSEPH: Absolutely. Well, I was thinking, Liz, when you were talking about a lot of the artists that you programmed in the Studio Theater when it was first built: artists like Trisha Brown, or the connection to Judson Dance Theater; that's a generation of artists that my department is really indebted to. We had a large-scale exhibition of Judson Dance Theater in 2018. And we also have acquired work by Trisha Brown, including part of the archives. So, I've been thinking a lot about not just how Yve as an artist feels, right, for the performance department at MoMA because he simultaneously has this background as a dancer practice as a sculptor, and performance artist, but also how this very particular moment of the 80s and early 90s at the Pillow that you both talk about so eloquently in the work, what really resonates with the history of programming that my department…
LIZ THOMPSON: Yeah, you're trying to do here what I tried to do, it seems to me, with the Studio Theater. I mean you're amidst classics. Um classics, at once, outraged, it's true, but you're trying things that are even more outrageous.
MARTHA JOSEPH: Well, I'm flattered Liz, but also, uh, you know, one comment you made in recent performance that I particularly liked when Yve asked you about your relationship to Ted Shawn. And I believe you responded that you both were iconoclasts is something that really resonated with me. Also, in terms of the thinking about how Yve work lives here at the museum and the relationship it has to the other narratives on the view.
LIZ THOMPSON: Yeah, I think it's a very difficult piece. I mean, I, it's very simple. But I try to explain it to people and I find it isn't easy to explain it.
NORTON OWEN: Yes, that's very true that the structure of the live presentations that we're doing are essentially Q and A's, you know, where Yve is the questioner, and he is having a dialogue with each one of us. And I should say that, aside from Liz and myself that we are also joined by Tony Tong, who was a planner who worked very closely with Jacob's Pillow in the years that led up to the well the the years that that Liz was directing, but also the years that led up to the building of this Studio Theatre. And we also have Steven Fernstole, who was the original architect for the theater. So having, you know, this range of viewpoints feels to me, even though even though Yve has kept us all very separate, and we don't, we don't necessarily we're like siloed and we don't necessarily hear what each other are saying, but I think that that that's part of his process that he wants us to speak our own truth and not be influenced by the other people who are part of this.
LIZ THOMPSON: And he wants to provoke us [Laughter] So that we are just a little bit off center in our responses.
MARTHA JOSEPH: But I think his provocations and, and the fact that he changes his questions week to week and results in a particular intimacy and spontaneity between you and him that as an audience member is quite captivating to watch. So, you don't feel like you're watching a piece of theatre. In fact, often, the way I describe this work to people who want to learn about it, I'm I'm using other terms that don't come from the realm of performance: describing it either as a live oral history or a live documentary [Thompson: that makes sense], or even thinking about the room as a courtroom. There is a stenographer, a court reporter who's live capturing in writing [Thompson: Yeah, wonderful] and in shorthand, all of the dialogues that you're having that goes also to the fact that Yve was working with each of you one-on-one, and you're kind of kept separate so that each of your narrative stays true to who you are, and also, there's kind of this nice multiplicity that unravels over the course of the entire project.
LIZ THOMPSON: It's gonna be wonderful to see the documentation of it [Laughter].
NORTON OWEN: Yes, yeah. So that we owe each be able to have more of a sense than we do now of what the totality of it is. I absolutely agree. And I certainly think that the people listening to us now, will have chances, I think, to see that documentation at Jacob's Pillow, certainly. And, and maybe at MoMA in in future years, as well. But it's, it's an incredible juncture to be sitting in at this moment, I have to say. And I feel the weight of it to some degree and the, and the import of it, that we are here in this building, with a piece of Jacob's Pillow, with people who have played a role in in Jacob's Pillow history. And, and knowing that all of this will be history as well. And I think legacy is a lot of different things, you know, and legacy is more than just buildings. And certainly in the case of Jacob's Pillow, and your legacy. I think of things like the some of the programming that you've spoken about already. I think about Inside Out, I think about one of the hugest things and I always talk about this whenever I'm showing people when I'm taking people around the grounds of Jacob's Pillow because [Thompson: the fences] well, yes, the fences, I mean, it was the one of the first things you did after you're in your first year of 1980, which was terrifying to some of the some of us who had been there in the past that suddenly like, oh, these areas that were private like suddenly you had the public walking around, and and it was scary.
LIZ THOMPSON: Well, for me personally, since my kids grew up there at the Pillow and you know, I remember at the Dance Magazine Awards. I said Jacob was my third son. And he was, you know. I can no longer take my grandchildren there and point to the theater. And that saddens me, that's all. I mean, that verbally they'll hear about it. But that just saddens me. But, uh, but Yve once asked me, you know, if if theater was to burn down, you know, should it be the Shawn or, you know, the Studio Theater? I mean, hands down, really, it's the right one that was burnt up, but
NORTON OWEN: Well, it's, it's tragic, no matter what that is, that is for sure. But I I still maintain that you know, even even without that building in our midst, which we miss every day, your presence is felt every day also…
LIZ THOMPSON: I am about to hover over [Laughter].
NORTON OWEN: Well, we like you hovering over.
LIZ THOMPSON: No, when you said the, when we were driving down here, that these podcasts are often voices of people who are not around anymore. And I thought, well, I made it to god knows [laughter] when you will broadcast this.
NORTON OWEN: Yes. You're very much with us at the moment. And and I'm so thrilled and honored that you are part of this presentation here at the museum.
LIZ THOMPSON: Well, you are, you know, Mr. Preservation personified at the Pillow. I remember when, in one of my first year there, you know, he came to me and said, I opened these trunks and there are things in it that are important. I thought, Norton, I don't know if I can pay your salary next week, you know. But wonderful. Go ahead.
NORTON OWEN: Knock yourself out.
LIZ THOMPSON: Knock yourself out. And that was the beginning. Well, no, it was…you've done, you did things before that. But no, thanks. You know, great, thanks to you.
NORTON OWEN: Well, it as we say, it takes a village, doesn't it?
MARTHA JOSEPH: Absolutely. And I'm really struck, even though Yve is not having you all sit in on group rehearsals or working with you together. I'm struck by the community that Yve has created by bringing you all together on this project. Of course, you know, each other from many years ago, but I'm curious to hear from you both how it feels to connect after all these years and what new insights you might have working together again?
NORTON OWEN: Well, it's been out (?), I will jump in to say it's been incredible for me. And part of part of what I've enjoyed the most out of this experience, I think have been the the drives that Liz and I have had going back and forth between the Berkshires in New York, because we've had a lot of time to talk and I've really enjoyed that so much.
LIZ THOMPSON: So have I (?) and Yve should know he's blessed because if Norton and been driving down, I'm not sure I would be here [Laughter]. For me, it's been very emotional and important because I have, as Norton does, an umbilical cord connection with the Pillow. And in a sense, my needed severing, because I'm not there anymore. And this is allowed me to find that other relationship. So, it's been important. I mean, the only thing that pisses me off, is that when I…all you hear about is the Duke, the Duke, the Duke. I mean, you know, it's not the Harvey. And the people at the Doris Duke Foundation who had the good sense to give the Pillow the money, I appreciate very much. But where are their names? Do you know what I mean? They're the ones who actually went through the process of saying yeah, this is something important.
MARTHA JOSEPH: Yeah. And yet, Yve named the exhibition Studio/Theater after the title, after the name of the studio…
LIZ THOMPSON:…which was really touching, yeah, for me.
NORTON OWEN: And yet he made the change also, which I the the attention to detail is quite notable that he that he made it theater spelled E R instead of theater R E, which is the way we spelled it at Jacob’s Pillow and, you know, that makes a distinction, it makes it something different and makes a statement. And and I think that's just one small example of how he has crafted this exhibition and this project in a way that I can't imagine anybody else doing.
LIZ THOMPSON: Yeah, Yeah. And the attention is attention to detail, kind of transcends the detail.
MARTHA JOSEPH: Absolutely. And, you know, his questioning of these different categories, studio and theater, and what they mean and how they might differ in terms of an architectural construction for a theater versus a studio, and how they might differ in terms of programmatic visions, is interesting to me, because I feel that it reflects back on the space in which you're performing [Thompson: Oh, absolutely, absolutely]. Just as much as you are explicitly discussing Jacob's Pillow, it implicitly reflects the Kravis Studio that you're in…
LIZ THOMPSON: Oh absolutely. That’s thrilling, actually. But the other connection with MoMA was the fire of that destroyed the Water Lilies. And [Joseph: yes], for me, that's been fantastic to think about what it means to preserve a painting. Um you know, which reminds me of Merce saying, “well, we're dancers,” you can hang us up on the wall. I mean, you kind of can see us now and in other forms, which didn't exist that. But yeah, just thinking about that kind of conservation and preservation, and what is the difference between conservation and preservation? He's rather a smart, young man [Laughter]
MARTHA JOSEPH: He is. Yeah, Yve and I had a lot of conversations early on in our process of working together about why is this exhibition happening at the Museum of Modern Art. And he was, of course, interested in these questions of conservation. And we began having conversations much like he did with you all at the Pillow informally with my colleagues who work here. And in speaking with, I believe it was Kate Lewis, the head of our Conservation Department learns that our conservation department was actually birthed in the wake of a fire at the museum in 1958. So, we were interested in the fact that fire simultaneously was this point of unexpected connection between these two institutions. And then also on MoMA side, wasn't just a traumatic event, but also birthed something new, it was transformative, it resulted in a deeper institutional commitment to conservation of the collection. And I think of the two different performances, Preservation and Conservation a little bit, in terms of before and after. In Preservation, you talk about the building of the theater leading up to the fire, and in Conservation, we're telling a history of MoMA that begins with that moment, and the fire and the beginning of the Conservation Department and then moves work forward from there and ask questions about how we contend with these fragile materials and artworks that remain within our walls.
NORTON OWEN: And thank you for bringing that back to MoMA again, as I think we need to wrap up this conversation. But it's been so wonderful to speak to both of you, and we'll keep talking.
MARTHA JOSEPH: Thank you.
LIZ THOMPSON: Thanks
NORTON OWEN: Thanks.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
NORTON OWEN: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.