Conversation with Lucinda Childs and Lou Forster around Street Dance
Free on booking.
On the occasion of the re-creation of Street Dance at the Bourse de Commerce, an in situ piece by the American choreographer Lucinda Childs, she reflects, in conversation with curator and art historian Lou Forster, on the stakes of this work and the importance it has had in the development of her choreographic practice.
On July 23, 1964, Lucinda Childs performed Street Dance, a work now recognized as a major contribution to American postmodern dance. This piece, with a duration of exactly six minutes, responds to an exercise given by the American choreographer Robert Ellis Dunn to the artists of the Judson Dance Theater. Its duration is determined by a sound recording played in the loft from which spectators observe the action taking place in the street.
The archives of the original performances of the piece, preserved at the CND, the National Center for Dance, are exceptionally exhibited in the museum’s Foyer and are on view on the occasion of the talk.
Lucinda Childs began her career as a choreographer in the early 1960s, as a member of the Judson Dance Theater. She founded her own company in 1973, with which she created landmark works of minimal dance. Dance (1979), conceived with a filmic set by Sol LeWitt and a composition by Philip Glass, is considered one of her most significant works. Lucinda Childs has also choreographed more than thirty pieces for major ballet companies and staged numerous operas, including Akhnaten by Philip Glass (Opera Forum Award 2021). A Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, Golden Lion recipient of the Venice Biennale (2017), she is a major figure of postmodern dance.
An exhibition curator, dramaturg, and art historian, Lou Forster works at the intersection of visual arts, dance, and the social sciences and humanities. Since 2016, he has been leading a large-scale research project that has enabled the rediscovery of Lucinda Childs’s graphic work. He has worked within the curatorial department of documenta 14 and on the research program “Choreographies. Writing and drawing, sign and image (15th–21st century)” at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art. He is the curator of the three-part exhibition Lucinda Childs — dancing page in hand at Frac Bretagne (January 30–May 24, 2026), Frac Franche-Comté (June 12, 2026–January 10, 2027), and the Centre d’art Le Lait–Albi (November 21, 2026–March 7, 2027).
In English, with simultaneous translation.