In Part One of this conversation, Laura Peterson talked about the sea-changes in her art over the years --- from satire, through abstraction, to a complex vehicle for personal, emotional expression.
After years of being cast as microscopic bugs and atomic particles, Peterson and her dancers emerged as human beings in 2012, in a piece called “Failure.” It addresses a universal human experience, but you’ve never seen the human condition rendered like this. The unique touch is the scenery -- a huge kite-like construction, designed to collapse during the performance.
Laura Peterson is the daughter of an academic philosopher, but as an artist she is also the child of the Judson School – drawing on the ideas incubated at Judson Memorial Church in the 1960s – among them minimalism, repetition, unusual settings and collaborations with other arts, and chance combinations. In “Failure,” it all comes together. We see choreography as philosophy – a working out of the paradoxical relationships of determinism, chance, and human will. And in a particularly satisfying twist, we can see it this summer at Judson Memorial. “Failure” will make its New York debut in that sacred space, June 29 through July 1. In March we talked about the work, and its new, post-election incarnation.
LP: “Failure” I did
after “Wooden” in 2011. Something happened
there, in “Wooden,” when we’re running back and forth, over and over, but I
didn’t think it went far enough. I could
see a possibility there, the possibility of exhaustion, and that it has an
emotional quality to it. And then I thought,
when does the body fail? What are your
personal physical limits? And can you go
farther than that, can you ask more of your body than that? The 2012 Olympics were happening then. And I looked at people’s effort, and their
limits, and then more effort and passing a limit you think you have. And then watching somebody collapse, because
their effort goes beyond their limit.
And then you become a person, which is excruciating. I keep thinking, why do I have to have
limits?
TP: For me, “Failure” is the most clearly realized piece you’ve done, because the concept is very simple. It’s just that people tend to avoid it. They don’t want to talk about it, everyone wants to be a success. But even success has its limits. And then what?
TP: For me, “Failure” is the most clearly realized piece you’ve done, because the concept is very simple. It’s just that people tend to avoid it. They don’t want to talk about it, everyone wants to be a success. But even success has its limits. And then what?
