RAWDANCE

Drawing inspiration from the French Natural History Museum’s La Salle des Espèces Menacéeset Disparues (gallery of endangered and extinct species), this performance installation from RAWdance and its collaborators mined the tales of creatures from the natural world now lost, and reflected on the passing of a generation of groundbreaking dance makers.

Among other questions, it asks: “How do we keep their essence alive?”

For three months of 2016, 836M transitioned into a living laboratory of artistic incubation for resident artists Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith, founders of RAWdance. The gallery became an immersive space and stage for this evolving-in-real-time collaboration with celebrated scenic designer/engineer Sean Riley. It included a company of six dancers in a project that advances a set of physical and visual responses to questions of extinction and de-extinction, loss and legacy.