Available Light

John Adams, Lucinda Childs and Frank Gehry

Thu 6 July, 2017

Sat 8 July, 2017

  • About the show
  • Reviews
  • Creative team

Available Light brought together three giants of postwar American culture: choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer John Adams and architect Frank Gehry in a new production first staged in 1983.

Available Light beautifully united the distinct visions of its three creators. Gehry’s designs playfully subverting convention, setting a backdrop of chain-link fencing against a stage split over two levels. Adams’ hypnotic soundtrack pulsed out in waves, subtly blending acoustic brass with synthesisers and electronics as it anchored the movements of a dozen dancers. And Childs’ intricate, mesmerising choreography, playing with notions of space and time, brilliantly distilled the minimalist aesthetic that has long kept her work at the cutting edge.

A perfect fusion of music, movement and art, Available Light is a landmark in American dance.

The revival of Available Light was commissioned by the Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley; Festspielhaus St Pölten; FringeArts, Philadelphia with the support of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center and The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association; Kampnagel Hamburg – Center for Fine Arts; Onassis Cultural Centre – Athens; Tanz im August, Berlin; and Théâtre de la Ville – Paris and Festival d’Automne à Paris. Available Light was developed at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). Produced by Pomegranate Arts, Inc.

TRAILER

GALLERY

Credit: Joel Chester Fildes

At moments, the choreography’s fractured geometry takes on a dazingly complex, hall-of mirrors quality. As multiple iterations of the same phrase play out, it’s as if all the crystals in a chandelier have been set jangling, throwing light in all directions

The Observer

Available Light is cunning and contained, unpredictable yet inevitable, and ultimately exhilarating. I didn’t always know where to look but my eyes were constantly engaged

The Times

John Adams Music
Lucinda Childs Choreography
Frank Gehry Stage design

Beverly Emmons & John Torres Lighting Design
Kasia Walicka Maimone Costume Design
Pomegranate Arts Production Management
Performed by The Lucinda Childs Dance Company