Lucinda Childs

Lucinda Childs, Nothing personal presents for the first time the archives of the American choreographer. To mark the donation of a special collection to the CND Centre national de la danse, the CND has partnered up with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Pantin in order to present a monographic exhibition bringing together Lucinda Childs’s graphic work (choreographic partitions, drawings, diagrams), as well as unique documents from artists with whom she has collaborated, notably Sol LeWitt, Babette Mangolte, Robert Mapplethorpe and Robert Wilson. The overall aim of the documents exhibited is to provide a journey of discovery into the formal invention of dance which is, in the words of the choreographer, “nothing personal”. The exhibition will be spread over two venues in the town of Pantin. At the CND Centre national de la danse, it details the way in which dance transforms the places it occupies. A collection of documents retraces the development of Lucinda Childs’s work at the Judson Dance Theater during the 1960’s and the passage from alternative New York spaces to her work in theatres during the early 1980’s, using optical devices which mixed together dance and imagery.

At the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, the graphical work of Lucinda Childs and Sol LeWitt will be on display. Their parallel development during the 1970’s lead to the collaboration on the creation of Dance (1979), one of the choreographer’s emblematic works, set to the music of Philip Glass. The arc of a circle motif present in the choreographic notations will be brought into confrontation with Sol LeWitt’s Wall-Drawing #357, spread out across the gallery walls. This wall drawing will be made, and then erased in public.