ON THE RADAR: Yvonne Rainer

Yvonne Rainer: Radical Juxtapositions 1961-2002

March 17-April 22. Carpenter Center. Free.

Yvonne Rainer is an artist, dancer, and choreographer who has also made seven experimental films.

On March 17, a career retrospective of this minimalist innovator comes to the Carpenter Center. The artist herself will give an introductory lecture Thursday night at 6 p.m., followed by a reception. Rainer’s career began as a dancer, and in 1962 she founded the influential Judson Dance Theater, which dominated the scene of postmodern dance from its Greenwich Village base for over twenty years.

Over time, she began incorporating video into her choreography, and by 1975, a year after the release of her first feature-length film, Film About a Women Who..., she had transitioned completely into filmmaking.

This exhibition, organized by art critic Sid Sachs, features two new video installations, a recreation of a stage set for a dance performance, and other collected ephemera from Rainer’s career, as well as video monitors screening five of Rainer’s films and footage from early dance performances. The exhibit is designed to provide an all-encompassing view of this jane-of-all-trades, as choreographer, poet, political activist, feminist, filmmaker, and visual artist.

—Christopher A. Kukstis