Dancing like it's 1979

When Lucinda Childs' "Dance" premiered in 1979, the New York Times called it a "failure" and audiences walked out. Nevertheless, the choreographer's five-movement collaborative work -- created by three of the most avant-garde artists of the time -- went on to become a dance legend.

Last year, "Dance" was re-commissioned by the Bard College SummerScape Festival. Since then, critics and audiences alike have been praising the postmodern work that is set to open tonight in the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium as part of the Spoleto Festival USA.

"People hadn't heard (Philip) Glass and hadn't seen this work before," Childs said, remembering the work's debut. "Even (Merce) Cunningham was controversial. Now we've been accepted, when people talk about 'Dance,' it's a classic compared with how it was received 30 years ago."

"Dance" is a multimedia work that uses a combination of projected video created by artist Sol Lewitt and live dance set to an original score by Glass.

Lewitt was known for using simple geometric shapes with repetitive structures and vibrant colors. His work once donned the mezzanine walls in Gaillard.

Glass, whose work has been presented at Spoleto Festival USA as recently as 2007, also uses repetition, reiterating melodic passages throughout his work. Both artists, along with Childs, are known for a minimalist aesthetic.

"There's no narrative. No story," said Childs. "It's more or less completely abstract. What we are working on is material, manipulating different materials in different ways"

Childs executed her abstract vision by using a scrim, a semi-transparent fabric hanging at the front of the stage. Lewitt's video of the original 1979 dancers performing is projected onto the scrim at a large scale. The projections, which still show the original 1979 cast, appear to be twice the size of their 2010, real-life counterparts. They are dressed in cream-colored shirts, pants and jazz shoes, and perform the exact same repetitions of small leaps, turns and footwork as the filmed dancers.

Childs, who studied and danced with Cunningham, often experiments with sound and space in her pieces.

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"In a lot of my earlier works, there was no music at all," Childs said. "They were done in alternative spaces: rooftops, gyms."

However, music has been a part of "Dance" since its conception. After collaborating on the opera "Einstein on the Beach," Childs and Glass wanted to continue their work together. They decided to create a dance piece and then called upon Lewitt to create the visual elements.

This creation might have been lost if Bard College had not re-commissioned the work in 2009. The original film, shot in 35mm, was in fragile condition. The college took on the job of digitalizing it, using the original negatives, as well as having the score re-mastered by Michael Riesman, the current music director of the Philip Glass Ensemble. The only difference between this production and the original is the live dancers.

If this is all that has changed, why are audiences and critics reacting so differently than the first time?

According to dancer and assistant to the choreographer Ty Boomershine, audiences want to see dance that is smart and interesting without being "cheap."

"Across the board, everyone was so hungry to see a piece like this again," he said. "It's highly virtuosic and technical dancing and moving. That's something Lucinda is a genius at, finding that level of beautiful and accessible without cheating."

The dancers, Boomershine said, also are enthralled by the work.

"They don't see it as a reconstruction or a classical masterpiece. They all see it as something really avant-garde and exciting as it was when it premiered," he said. "What's different about Lucinda's work is that fact that we're always moving. We never make poses. It's purely dance."

Courtenay Thompson is a Goldring Arts Journalism Program writer. Reach her at cothomps@syr.edu.