The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović

Full text

Agôn
Revue des arts de la scène
6 | 2013
La Reprise
The artist is present in the bodies of many:
Reperforming Marina Abramović
Carrie Stern
Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/agon/2739
DOI: 10.4000/agon.2739
ISSN: 1961-8581
Publisher
Association Agôn
Electronic reference
Carrie Stern, « The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović », Agôn
[Online], 6 | 2013, Online since 23 February 2014, connection on 19 April 2019. URL : http://
journals.openedition.org/agon/2739 ; DOI : 10.4000/agon.2739
This text was automatically generated on 19 April 2019.
Association Agôn et les auteurs des articles

The artist is present in the bodies of
many: Reperforming Marina
Abramović
Carrie Stern
I profoundly thank the reperformers for sharing such a deeply felt experience. Their
thoughtfulness, forthrightness, and generosity of spirit were a gift. I especially thank Jeramy
Zimmerman for introducing me to the reperformers, for passes to MoMA, for her friendship. I want
to thank Daniela Stigh and Margaret Doyle from MoMA’s Department of Communication for their
help.
“What made me embark on this quest? (Jill asked
so I’m answering.)” I had not come to MoMA to see
The Artist is Present, which was not yet the cultural
phenomenon it would become. This is what
grabbed me – "REPERFORMANCE AS A MEANS OF
INVESTIGATING AND PRESERVING PERFORMANCE
ART1." ”
1 Sixty-three at the time of the MoMA exhibition, Marina Abramović has been leading up to
“reperformance”, since moving to New York City in 2001. In interviews with art historian
Janet Kaplan (1999/Art Journal), before the term “reperformance” appears, with Chris
Thompson and Katarina Weslien (2006/PAJ), and in The Observer (2010), among others,
Abramović expressed her ideas about preservation and her concerns about the future of
historic performance art. “If works of performance art are never seen after their initial
staging, they just die. ‘Many of my colleagues never give permission to re-perform their
work because they think it will be changed, and will not be their own work,’” she told The
Observer. “But I really have a different opinion. Even it’s (sic) changed…still it’s better that
it is re-performed in that changed form than not performed at all and become just kind of
dead material in books and bad video recordings. I really believe that we have to give this
kind of new life to performance.” Abramović tested her ideas first on her own body in
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
1

Seven Easy Pieces (2005), a “re-staging” of iconic work by six artists, as well as one of her
own, at the Guggenheim Museum, and then on the bodies of others in The Artist is Present.
The Artist is Present
© Erica Papernik.
2 My interest in preservation starts from my fascination with the in-fighting and
maneuvering that ensued in the wake of the deaths of Erick Hawkins (1994) without a
will, the Martha Graham (1991) post-death lawsuit, and the complications that followed
the demise of other important choreographers of their generations over control of their
work, including their techniques.
3 Though separated by at least two decades, many performance artists (and dancers) of the
1960s/1970s had similarly not provided for a future for their seminal work. As this
generation matured in the 1980s, they began making repertory works or returned to
product-oriented art. Even as idiosyncratic a choreographer as Trisha Brown codified her
work, creating training and repertory that can be passed on and sold.
4 The early work of many in this generation was built on the artist’s specific body. Often
designed for a particular place, to be fleeting—if such a thing can be said of those works
that lasted anywhere from multiple hours to months—the go-for-broke ethos did not
necessarily expect replication. A groundbreaking concept of late 1960s/early 1970s avant
garde, asserted that the in-the-moment character of the performance, the search for
experience, was paramount; that production was ephemeral, once mounted unlikely to be
seen again.
5 Codification changes such performance removing an edge. Journalist Holland Cotter
—“Two elements that originally defined performance art as a medium, unpredictability
and ephemerality, were missing [at MoMA]…Without them you get misrepresented
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
2

history and bad theater.” And, in the big-institution event in which the MoMA
reperformances occurred physical risk had to be minimized. Abramović reperformer
Abigail Levine explains: —“The chance and risk of Marina’s early work was not there [in
the MoMA show]. Risk of a certain kind had to be removed in this context, in
[contracting] other bodies to do the work.” Yet reperformance—repetition, duration of
another kind, new rules, settings, etc—brought new understandings, new types of
development, while maintaining the work’s inherent surprise. These new understandings
encompass a different idea of what it means for a work of performing art to continue to
live. Choreographers often recreate their work. Like Monet’s many visions of haystacks,
versions are created for new casts, costumes changed for dancers whose technique
changes the “look” of the movement. Older arts – ballet, Kabuki – know that things
cannot remain static; change is the essence of performance. But performance art – with
its odd blend of visual art aesthetics and the performing body is just beginning to ask
what it means to preserve that which is inherently unpreservable in the way that, say, a
painting is. Thus the concept of reperformance, whether the artist chooses to allow other
bodies to inhabit the work or consign it to “bad video recordings” is crucial to the future
of many types of performance.
6 Abramović has thought about “passing on” since the 1990s. “A hundred years after
Mozart’s death,” she told art historian Janet Kaplan, “you can have your own
interpretation of Mozart, but you still say it’s by Mozart. In that way, I think a
performance should be open like music. There’s a structure of the performance that you
can see and then you make your own interpretation and have your own experience. You
absolutely have to respect the originality of the piece,” and ask permission from a living
artist, she adds. “You can do whatever you want after that.” Each reperformance,
therefore, depending on the place, the body of the performer, their instincts and choices,
will unavoidably diverge from the original. Abramović considers previous performances
– hers and others –“original material,” evidence available for re-creation, for staging,
which she later terms re-enacting and eventually reperformance. “The moment you
create the work,” she told Kaplan, “it’s not yours anymore. It’s not your property.” “It can
no longer be the same,” reperformer Levine told me, “there is nothing sacred about the
original. They have to be strong enough [to work] in this new context; some [MoMA
reperformances] worked more than others, or worked in different ways.”
7 Where “ownership claims” in modern dance often insist on a single “correct”
interpretation, Abramović, according to several reperformers, only asks for an adherence
to a structure, to timing, to the spirit of the work. Without ever saying there is a “right
way,” she claims an essence for her work that is immutable. To me, this approach allows
for the inevitable change over time in what the body of the originator, and of future
performers, know; an understanding that interpretation is unavoidable as each person
who performs a work imbues it with their self. Tamsin Nutter, a writer and former dancer
who works in MoMA’s marketing department, wrote in the museums blog; “Abramović
has said that her own body is the subject, object, and medium of her artwork. In a
reperformance, it follows that the medium, at least, has changed; like a choreographer
using dancers, she has expanded her tools and materials to include other people. Marina
Abramović is present everywhere in this exhibition, both in body and spirit, but she’s not
the only one. The reperformers—bodies, minds, artists—are fully, go-for-broke present
too.”
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
3

8 From July 2010 to July 2011, I interviewed six reperformers from Abramović’s MoMA
retrospective spending over an hour with each. Conversation ranged widely focusing on
their experience, addressing differences between reperformance and original
performance, the impact of their experience on their personal lives, the museum as a site
for live performance including labor issues. As an aspect of the performance experience
audience reaction and reception is addressed and the remarkable role of the museum
guards during the three-month event. Questions were not always directly answered
instead acting as prompts. For coherence I have reordered, condensed, and extracted
hoping to allow six separate interviews to talk to each other. The performers were given
the opportunity to preview the finished edit assuring their ideas were not
misrepresented.
9 This article is divided into two large categories – Preserving and Investigating. Divisions
within Preserving include: type and training of reperformers and their understanding of
their relationship to the original work, including the durational experience. Investigation
addresses a wide range of concerns relating to interpretation – in general and of
individual works, moving from reperformance to performance, the artist’s sense of
presence, and engagement between performers.
The reperformers in the order interviewed
Following the first reference in the text only initials will be used.
Deborah Wing-Sproul (D.W-S) Deborah Wing-Sproul is a multi-disciplinary artist working
primarily in video and performance. She is an Assistant Professor at the Maine College of
Art and University of Maine. A mother of 3, she commuted for the duration of the show.
(7/21/2010).
Jeramy Zimmerman (J.Z.) is a choreographer and performer. She is the founder of
FLICfest (Feature Length Independent Choreography) and Cat Scratch Theater.
(9/13/2010).
Jill Sigman (J.S.) is a choreographer and performer. Her “Hut Project” blends
environmental concerns with performance. (12/15/2010).
Gary Lai (G.L.) sometimes performs and sometimes does, or teaches, gymnastics, martial
arts, dance, yoga, and rock-climbing. (5/9/2011).
Abigail Levine (A.L.) is a dance and performance artist. She has a Masters in Dance and
Performance Studies from NYU. (6/6/2011) .
Layard Thompson (L.T.) is a choreographer and performance artist. He lives at Sassafras,
an artist-owned and operated community space in rural Tennessee. (7/24/2011).
The works
1. Imponderabilia - Two nude performers face each other on either side of a doorway.
Viewers enter the exhibit between their bodies (1977).
2. Point of Contact - Two performers, dressed in black, loose fitting suits and white shirts,
stand still and silent one finger pointing towards the other, nearly touching (1980).
3. Relation In Time - Two performers sit silently back-to-back in white shirts their long hair
twined together into a single bun (1977).
4. Nude With Skeleton - The performer lies nearly still under a real skeleton (2005).
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
4

5. Luminosity - Nude female performers sit on a bicycle seat mounted high on the gallery
wall; a ladder reaches the seat, pedals allow minute changes (1997).
Preserving
The reperformers discuss their understanding of how to perpetuate performance art and
the reperformer’s role in that continuity.
Deborah WING-SPROUL. One of Marina’s stated objectives for this exhibit was to set down
groundwork for preserving performance art. One of the divisive issues is whether or
not original works of performance can, or should be, performed again. Marina thinks
yes. To me there is no argument. If the maker wants them to be they should be
reperformed. [But] if it’s to only be done once, that’s what the work is. One way or the
other, hopefully there is enough understanding of an artist’s intentions after their
death so their wishes can be honored. She’s thinking about her legacy and she’s laying
out instructions – “if you do this, here’s how. Here’s the liberties you can take and
here’s what you can’t take.” Marina had a film crew following her. She had them shoot
one-hour takes of each of the pieces. She chose one or two performers for her archives.
So my whole feeling about re-performing Marina’s work is that I wanted to know as
much as possible about her intentions so I could carry them out without miming her, so
I could take her intent with my own authority. Both would be live performances of the
work. And I think that whether or not people liked the exhibit or agreed with it, I think
she made a huge step forward in terms of preserving performance art and pointing to
some of the problems inherent in preserving performance.
Abigail LEVINE. What Marina created with the show goes far beyond putting up a good
display for museum visitors – the training over a course of a year or a year-and-a-half
of hand selected artists, the very real question of how museums function, and that
includes asking questions about the relationship of patrons, guards, board of trustees.
Gary LAI. As one of the reperformers I think I played a role [in preservation,] but I don’t
think it’s my responsibility [to preserve the work,] nor is it one I want, but I’m open to
it if that’s what my part of it ended up doing.
Jeramy ZIMMERMAN. I think that we are all a living document now, but [our future role]
is a huge question. We are documents of the work, and in other ways [the work] is
different now that we’ve done it. But it’s not like the Jerome Robbins Foundation, I’m
not ordained to go set Marina’s work on some small market museum. I think that we’re
a resource.
The last weekend of our show some young performance artists got together and did
some of the work we were doing calling it “The Artist Is Absent”. They [reperformed]
Rhythm 10, the one with the knife. My understanding is that Marina is fine with people
reperforming her work, but not the work they can harm themselves with. I think they
missed the mark with what the work is about, it became cheeky, but at the same time
they had a right to do it if the instructions are simple. You can only copy-write the title.
Part of me feels like now it’s my duty [to] speak out, not spoil the piece. Being open to
talking about the experience is one way of preserving it.
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
5

Training
A “training workshop” was held at the Marina Abramović Institute, her home in Hudson,
New York. The workshop was designed to instill concepts informing the work, sensitivity
towards it, develop the stamina needed for durational work, and build community. For a
variety of reasons some participants in the training did not appear in the exhibition, some
who did were hired at a later time.
A.L. Our training was about turning inward towards experience, slowing down, finding
your strength, your resources for completing the performances. During the training
workshop Abramović never made an explicit connection between the work and the
workshop. “We Cleaned The House;” that’s the name of her workshop. Instructions
were provided, and they were very ridged—count these lentils and rice for an hour,
separate by color, count, keep track—there was never a sense of “this is for this,” or
“you’ll get tired and frustrated and then you’ll…”[I don’t know] whether it was
instinctual that she didn’t say, “now take that and use as a lesson for this.
J.Z. Marina is very clear, you can’t rehearse this work, that’s not what it’s about, but
you have to train your body and mind to withstand the demands of the work.
G.L. I missed bonding with Marina and the others, but I felt that I got a chance to do the
piece(s) on my own, [to be] this reperformer doing the piece rather than someone
coached to a certain aspect [of the work] in terms of the exercise and so on. [My
experience] may have been truer to Marina’s ideas of preparing for the piece.
“What were Marina’s instructions to you?”
By all accounts Abramović´ does not believe in rehearsal as such and instruction is
minimal. The training, “Cleaning The House,” is enough. Performance, for Abramović, is
primarily about interpretation of the structure. Some performers perceived a gap between
Abramović´s “vision” and, if her instructions were strictly followed, “practicality.” I have
placed instructions under “presence,” but while following instructions interpretation begins.
L.T. I was surprised by how little instruction there was. Instructions were transmitted
through doing; I felt rewarded by the latitude for performers to figure things out on
their own.
Jill SIGMAN. For Luminosity they were, “lift your arms slowly, stop anywhere, and stay as
long as you can.” I had a lot of questions about what that meant. She answered some of
them. Some people didn’t hear the answers. It was very loose. I didn’t want more
instructions… As dancers you want to execute the work of the director. Marina is a
performance artist not a director, not a theater person. She thinks [in terms of] a set of
rules and situations, not choreographic directions. She doesn’t have as fine grained a
sense of movement as a dancer does. Lift your arms means only one thing to her. To a
dancer it means 100 things.
J.Z. We got the set up of the pieces – Point Of Contact – facing each other with fingers
almost touching but never touch; Relation In Time-back to back with ponytails tied;
during Luminosity we were to remain symmetrical…
G.L. There was no initial discussion. We had what they called rehearsals, but it was like
a run-through—how people would stand in Imponderabilia; how it would be with people
walking through; how to sit on the bicycle seat; getting used to the space. We used the
time to go through logistics, chat; she said, “When you do it you understand it.” I heard
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
6

she was upstairs every morning to check on things and make sure it was exactly the
same, but there was no instruction.
D.W-S. One of Marina’s general comments about performing this work is, you find small
incremental ways of moving your body to release pain or increase circulation.
Sometimes people would need to move a leg to release a cramp but in Nude With Skeleton
the main thing is the breath. People did move some, but the focus is not on new body
positions. Within a given performance I think her intent was to assume a position and
commit to it more or less [in] relative stillness.
Marina Abramović, Nude with Skeleton
Nude with Skeleton (originally performed by Marina Abramović, 2002/2005), as
reperformed by Jeramy Zimmerman forMarina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (2010), The
Museum of Modern Art, New ork. Courtesy Marina Abramović and Sean Kelly Gallery.
© 2010 Marina Abramović. Photo © 2010 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan
Muzikar
How did you understand your relationship to the original work? To Abramović?
This question is primary. As Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA’s curator-at-large put it, “Marina
seduces everyone!” While this is clearly true for the reperformers, they were also
negotiating performing the works in a context unlike those Marina had performed the
original version, particularly a different experience of duration. Their experience was also
affected by their status as museum employees, a new category both for the museum and
for performers more accustomed to short-term engagements. At first many tried to
perform according to a “Marina template.” Increasingly, however, they realized the need to
perform her structures, but as themselves. The negotiation between wanting to maintain
her essential work and their own interpretation is central to many reperformers’ experience.
A.L. Our contact with Marina was in the intensity of our training. Then there was a long
lag, and then dreaminess. Then there were meetings while galleries were being
constructed, then two emails in first six weeks.
G.L. Physically each piece was different and challenging. Because [Abramović doesn’t
believe in rehearsal] I didn’t even want to think about the piece, I just wanted to go in
and have it be totally new to me. Some performers wanted to get together and discuss
[the works] to make sure everyone didn’t get used to doing the pieces [so] they’d
become rote; to help us continue to stay focused. We never did that but we would
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
7

discuss it in the hall. We still discuss it when we get together; we never get tired of
discussing it.
J.S. [There is] a sense of responsibility knowing you are performing someone else’s
work. It felt like a navigation that is fraught with questions – navigating the pieces,
navigating my role as an interpreter of Marina’s work. You’re navigating a boundary
between making it your own and doing [what was given to you.]
L.T. I was fine with being a creative performance artist who [developed] the intent in
her work [with] latitude to bring the energy and thought that the performance
required.
A.L. I think the MoMA experience brought reperformers challenges different than
Marina’s challenges—the distractability in a retrospective [with so much going on] is
high; it would be interesting to perform any of these works in isolation and compare it
to this performance. I looked at documentation of Marina performing; it wasn’t for
imitation so much as sort of observation, a version of completeness. In my estimation,
in Marina’s work it is the design of the structures that provides the possibility of an
experience for an audience [so] Marina isn’t the only one who can perform [the work.]
There’s this cult of personality that Performance Art is steeped in, it’s hamstrung by
the “who” of a performance. There is a wonderful potential in these reperformances to
erase that and see anonymously whether there is an energetic possibility in the
performances that is enough; or do you need to come to a show already invested in a
person’s performance?
D.W-S. I sometimes teach performance work, so I think I was one of the few performers
steeped in Marina’s work prior to performing it. I had seen her perform several pieces.
For me, there was a question of Mariana performing her work, and [someone else]
representing it…Marina brings her entire history and identity and body to the work. I
think if she were to reperform her own work now [it would be different.] I can’t be her
body. I feel like when I enter these works I’m bringing all of whom I am. I feel that
having witnessed her performing multiple times was helpful to me, a guide. That
previous experience helped me reperform. When I saw her perform Luminosity…I still
had my own skepticism, I needed to experience her energy in that work [before] any
skepticism or doubt shifted. She had variation in her gaze, breath, a range of body
positions. It was extremely powerful. One of [Marina’s] early on comments about Nude
With Skeleton was that you need to have your own relationship with the Skelton, that
you need to engage with the skeleton in your own way…She didn’t want us to look at
photo and copy what she’d done, she wanted us to find a position where it felt personal,
where we found our own way with the skeleton.
How did performing the duets in both same-sex and mixed-sex couples change the work
from Abramović’s original, mixed-sex duets?
J.Z. When Marina did the work it was [with] her partner and lover; only a few people […
] had that relationship with someone in the show. Sure, it was different to [perform
Imponderabilia] with a man than a woman. It changed with every partner and even with
the same partner sometimes.
J.S. I thought about this a lot. I don’t know that it was different performing it (
Imponderabilia) with another woman, but I was struck that I wasn’t performing with my
lover, [there was no] bond that preceded and extended beyond [the performative
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
8

moment]. Not that I didn’t have a bond with the people I performed with, but I feel that
because Marina and Ulay were connected they didn’t need to stare [at each other; they
could just be there together.
Bodies
Jill Sigman raises another question; it is one that first peeked my interest in these
performances. She asks, “What happens when more trained looking bodies – ballet
dancers, yoga teachers – perform? Does that change the statement? What are the politics
of that?” This is a question that haunts modern dance as new training techniques, new
ideas about what bodies should look like, new styles of movement, permeate each
generation of dancers. Martha Graham’s work, for example, looks very different on 2013
bodies than it did on 1940s and ‘50s bodies.
A.L. Why dancers? I think Marina knew very clearly of the possible population [you
could] say to – “so you have to do this kind of work for 3 months” – the only ones who
could do it were dancers. She said to most of the performance artists “you gotta’ learn
from these guys.” There were about half a dozen performance artists and about 32
dancers or people with dance training [who are] now more in realm of performance.
J.S. It’s interesting for me to grapple with the issue of the bodies of the people who
reperformed (these works). It’s not just a set of roles and whoever you put it in it looks
the same…Marina is negative about dance and dance training and rehearsal, and yet
she was very happy, and needed to, use bodies trained in that way. Others would not
have lasted in the show so she capitalized on dance world rigors and practices but did
not want to give credence to it. And once you capitalize on those skills it changes the
work. I look different [in the work] than the work would have looked in a one-day show
with people whose bodies could have done it for one day.
L.T. Yozmit is a male-bodied, transgendered performance artist who has not yet
transitioned but is fully committed to her femaleness. She was the only all male-bodied
person who performed Luminosity and that brought a level of intrigue to the piece. I
applaud [Marina] that Yozmit was able to perform Luminosity. I understand the desire
to control, in a certain sense, the content of your work. I think [allowing Yozmit to
perform] took the work further.
Duration
Abramović´ performed most of her work once, some for no longer than fifteen minutes,
others evolving over hours or days. [In contrast performance duration per reperformer at
MoMA was considerably different than for many of the original works, some longer some
considerably shorter.] The reperformers performed several different works in shifts, several
times a day, repeated over many months. Their understanding of “durational work” is
perforce different than Abramović´s.
J.Z. I think that at first there was some disappointment from the performers that we
weren’t doing “endurance work,” only 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. But doing it over 3
months, it would have been a lot harder to do all day. We had to redefine our definition
of what durational work is because we were keeping this going over three months.
When Marina and Ulay did [Relation In Time] they did it for 18 hours, once. None of us
did it that long, but we did it over a much longer time.
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
9

A.L. The physical sensations – there was a nice period then, as it went on longer, there
was a brewing strain on the body. As we got into the third month it was a job in a very
real way. I haven’t had performance gigs that were up for a period of time, I mostly do
project based work. [The duration of the show] was a counter force on the experience
but in some ways that spoke to [the] image [required] in this space. Everyday, like a
painting, [we were there.] And there was a sort-of pleasant quotidianness about it:
we’re not making art, just going up stairs taking our clothes off, getting in the doorway.
D.W-S. I don’t think people took into consideration the cumulative pain. The experience
was profound, and different than anything Marina had experienced when doing the
work. It became its own type of duration event. I personally didn’t perform every
minute of every day. None of us was.
L.T. [The performance] changed [with our] deepening and ongoing engagement and
fatigue. We had to battle over days and months, macro[ing] each performance… When
the next performer would come and move the skeleton, [for example,] it was painful to
move my spine. I’d move away while the next person arranged their self with the
skeleton. The audience would bear witness [to the transition, to our stiffness and pain.]
When Marina did it, it was a 15-minute video mediation on breathing with the skeleton
resting on her own body; as far as I know [Mariana] would have experienced it
differently... I think the duration of it all, of the entire exhibit, created a space where
we could deepen our relation to the work.
G.L. In Nude With Skeleton the skeleton’s pelvic bone was on your crotch. Everyone
rushed out after that piece having to go to bathroom. One female got a UTI. One
performer finished their shift and smelled urine (from their body.) One performer got
her period during the piece. For Marina it’s the piece, whatever happens. I got up two
times during the course of different shifts to go to the bathroom. I folded the arms of
the skeleton and left. Then I heard from Marina that she’d had people tell her about me
leaving. She sent me an email to the effect that, if I was having trouble during the piece
I should concentrate on the other pieces. I told her other people were having trouble.
So I spoke to other reperformers and adjusted the pelvic bone so it was sitting higher
and there was less weight on my bladder so the skeleton rested more on my chest. It
was more painful that way. By the time you finished you had an imprint, a tattoo of the
skeleton, but that kept me from having to go to the bathroom. People came in to the
resting space crying, or fainting and falling. If someone felt like they would faint, the
stage manager would come in the “green room” asking for someone to replace them.
Investigating
Interpretation
This sections shifts focus from trying to reperform the original work to adaptations,
perhaps even new versions of the performance pieces as the reperformers accommodate
the setting at MoMA, the length of the exhibit, and their own growing ownership of the work
from how they approach it to how it “sits” in their bodies.
L.T. There was a learning curve in the beginning. The experience was different each
time we performed and with each person. Everyone brought a different focus and
intensity… you were a vessel who was creating. There were instances where we kind of
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
10

taught one another, and ones where we had diametrically opposed perspectives…All of
us worked within our self-proscribed scoring limitations that we developed over time.
For example, in Relation In Time, we didn’t have to stare at the wall; we could shift our
gaze to the audience… For me subtle movement, and openness and expansion, were a
meditative focus. There was some artistic license not apparent in the set of ways that
movement occurred. In Relation in Time [my partner and I] began to have a quiet dance
that involved a certain amount of movement. Was that ok? We didn’t know. No one was
privy to the first sixteen hours of Ulay’s and Marina’s performance [of the work]; they
didn’t say what they did with their braided connection.
A.L. There is so much space in everything she offers so it requires creativity, not just a
precision of execution. Particularly as a dancer you’re not always getting that. Even if
you were doing the same exact task we didn’t mimic any (one else’s performance.)
J.S. Marina is against anything theatrical, [but] I think people wanted to feel they were
having a profound experience and dramatize it; a mechanism toward theater. [But] it
gets back to how presence can be mundane; you have to accept that… The need to feel,
to do better, to show how extreme you will go can lead to strange performance tropes.
On the other hand these were valid interpretations.
A.L. Luminosity was particularly theatrical in my experience and the most difficult to
perform. I had not been drawn to it from the image, but it seemed a fabulous
complement to Imponderabilia. In deciding how to do things eye contact was a huge one,
and our movement using foot pedals, little adjustments that shifted our relationship
with the audience. One of the questions I went through a lot with Luminosity was how
theatrical to get, and how much to be quiet and let the structure do what it was going
to do.
Maria S.H.M. and Abigail Levine reperforming Imponderabilia, Marina Abramović: The Artist Is
Present (2010)
Photo: Scott Rudd
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
11

D.W-S. Because the arms are moving very slowly in Luminosity – Marina’s moved
infinitesimally and that’s so difficult to do – that’s one place a performer makes a
decision; how quickly to move their arms, what do they want them to look like. And I
think one of the brave things Marina did was to say, “Find a position you can work with
and focus on your breath. Move your arms slowly.” I think a quick look at that piece can
be so misleading... it can make a person feel the woman performer is a victim or an
object, or just very vain to be in that position, but in fact the performer has a
tremendous amount of control and the level of commitment to the work is so intense
it’s sort of rises above all the other stuff.
From Reperformance to Performance
Repeatedly many of the reperformers expressed a struggle between remaining faithful to
their understanding of Abramović´s original and finding their own way, their personal
expressions and meaning in the work. This raises many questions. Is a reperformance an
exact replica? What does that mean? Is it the form alone? Or is it the intention of the work,
the presence of the performer, the feeling they represent? How does the reperformers
instinct, so familiar to dancers, to make the performance “about something” intersect with
the traditional understanding of performance art as a rejection of theatricality?
A.L. One question that was central to my doing, and to observing other reperformers
[was that] I felt that there was a difference between [reperforming] and performing. I
felt as though, from what I observed and heard, that [for others performing] felt like a
meditation, and there were meditative elements. But I was very aware of drawing on
[my] skills as a performer; that I was there for an audience at a museum. There was also
a camera crew at training and at the museum.
G.L. There were two Relations In Time, two Imponderabilias, [Marina’s original and the re-
performances,] both valid, both different. Because of that each dance is different each
time…I always look at it like a sand painting, its there and then its gone with the wind.
There was an understanding by all the reperformers of the durational aspects of
stillness, [but] I don’t think it can be the same [for everyone.] That’s why she doesn’t
want people to rehearse, its supposed to be unpredictable, without a forgone
conclusion or definite ending…The value of what durational stillness presents, what it
can represent, is in how…in a sense, it’s so much more direct and to the point than
dance or theater. Performance art cuts out all the fat.
D.W-S. Marina knows a lot about how to perform… I think… it would have been
interesting for each performer to have [had Marina’s] eye, had her honest raw
feedback… [and] I think she had ways of finding out certain things, but… she wasn’t
there and didn’t watch us perform, [it’s] not the same… Even if technically a person was
falling within the guidelines [Marina] set out you can go through the paces, but does
the energy read to the audience? It’s personal, difficult to talk about, [the work] is so
subtle and nuanced… I think some people assume it doesn’t matter one way or the
other, and some take more liberties with the works than others, and I think that some
people think taking those liberties are necessary and encouraged, but only Marina can
say that in the end. I think it’s problematic to assume too much about Marina’s
position. I think that direct feedback [from Marina is] a link that everyone would have
loved to complete.
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
12

L.T. I’ve adapted more of [choreographer] Deborah Hay’s solos than almost any other
person. Rather than re-perform, the nature of [performing Hay’s solos is] really an
adaptation. [But it] gave me tools. Deb’s work offers the performer a whole-body
awareness and different tools that one perceives as one experiences it. So there were
instances when I pulled from my bag of Deb Hay tricks. I drew on Deb’s meditative
practices and her mantras to [help focus on the] primacy of movement when
improvising and doing a work, or getting away form the treadmill of my mind, bringing
myself back.
J.S. In dance, so often, there is a short period to live in anything, and in performance art
even less so. It was amazing to have [a performance] become a daily practice. There are
more layers and different experiences. Questions can suddenly come-up as an issue —
Do you try to repeat what you did before or try to avoid what you did? You do it long
enough you can try [both]. Over time… in the longer period… you develop a sense
about, a criteria for what is better… and you have a challenge of resisting that. You
[ask], through all different phases of doing: what is better? Why do I think it’s better?
That doesn’t happen with one performance… At some point I had to flip a switch and
decide how I wanted to do it, it was up to me. Once you realize you can make choices on
your own its fine. It raises interesting questions about [what] gaps to fill in. What is
being true to the work? Do I try to look like Marina did when she did it? Do I just
interpret and look different than she did? Do I try to have her mental state? What is it
to do it more faithfully?
J.Z. Early on I [might] think “this is what this is about”, but it would feel inauthentic; it
became about something else. At some point I don’t feel like we inhabited someone
else’s work. She gave the work to us to do; it was just different when we did it. We
weren’t trying to be Marina, or out Marina, it became ours. As performers we settled
into [the pieces.] At first, [because] Marina says its not theater, people were worried
about [making] changes. [But] the [works] weren’t “choreographed”, we weren’t
Marina doing the piece. So the more we settled in and found what the piece meant to
our own bodies the fuller the work got. It felt fuller towards the end.
Presence
The reperformers ability to be in the moment was a primary theme of conversation. It
connects both to the questions of interpretation - reperformance vs performance, concerns
about how new bodies embody the work of another, and connection with the audience.
Presence, the presentation of self, is a primary aspect of investigation.
J.S. The pieces, and the show, were about a notion of presence. I charged myself with
that as my mission, to be as present as possible, to reveal my physical and mental
landscape without performing those things. What presence felt like on different days
was very different. Sometimes it was profound and sometimes it was mundane; each
piece was a very different experience. [I saw] my interpretation of the work as a varied
landscape – different things on different days…I didn’t feel like I was trying to imitate
or be Marina. I’d been given a mandate to go through the experience. People would talk
about us as stand-ins, or surrogates. There was a lack of understanding that we were
artists in our own right performing her work, but not trying to be her.
J.Z. At first [there was] a desire to make it about something for myself, to interpret, but
that gave way to an understanding, or an idea that the work was just about being
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
13

present. I didn’t have to decide what I was doing; we were the medium for other people
to see what they were going to see. And sometimes it was really hard to just stay
present; sometimes it was easy.
D.W-S. Marina is focused on the audience. Her ability to project her energy into the
audience is tremendous. When I saw Marina in The House With the Ocean View, even
though I’d seen two prior works, I was stunned. It wasn’t a crowded gallery experience.
She was living in the gallery; people would come and go, at most 20-30 at a time. I
[thought], “Oh my god, is everyone having the same experience I‘m having?” It’s a
kind-of commitment to the energy that nothing breaks her focus. I think that part of
that [focus] comes with practice, and part with sheer willpower, which she has a
tremendous amount of… [As a performer] It was one thing to bear witness to her
energy and [another] to [question] “how is the movement going to translate on its
own?” There was a year of anticipation leading to the exhibition. To have all that
anticipation and finally be performing the work was a big moment for me. It was a
relief to be doing the work.
Negotiation
In contrast to Abramović’s typical performance mode, the lack of direct audience
involvement was the greatest alteration in The Artist Is Present. While the performers’ and
Abramović’s physical bodies were deeply impacted by performing, the audience was
“present” only as deeply as they chose to be often treating the performers more like typical
museum objects than live beings. Here performers talk about active, emotional exchange
with the audience.
D.W-S. Most people had never seen Marina perform the works. Audiences compared
[the reperformers] with a static video moment staged for a camera. They missed the
[MoMA] live performance by getting hung up on [the video] performance, and that’s
sad. The video was meant as a reference, not as “the thing.” People maybe didn’t
understand her intention with the video.
Nude With Skeleton was my favorite; Luminosity was a close second. They were different
points of entry for connecting with the audience…where they take me…is to a place of
humility. In both of the pieces I felt very raw and I was willing to make myself
completely available. Looking at someone in the audience, one of the over-whelming
messages that would go through my mind was feeling that I’m really no different than
you. But the performance energy needs to be there in order for there to be a place of
engagement for the audience, energy that the audience can step into. But once they
step into it there is an exchange between the two people. It’s an active exchange… it’s
not just being directed out, it’s not just expanding… In all the pieces, as a performer,
you get a clear read on people’s energy, what they bring to the performance, when
they’re engaged, if they’re judgmental, or shifting and letting go of their judgment.
Skelton was vulnerable because of being supine with a corpse; the piece is a place
between life and death. My breath is a symbol of life and the skeleton is a sign of death,
and that position creates a tremendous amount of empathy. People’s response is very
direct. People would stay with that piece for an hour or more and weep or do things to
let me know they were having a personal experience.
People stayed with Luminosity [also,] but the performer position in Luminosity is so
much more powerful and vulnerable. In Luminosity what was exciting was when I felt
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
14

the audience not just watching but participating, not just looking at me but engaging
with the work; that type of energy from the audience feels very different…My position
up on the wall is a place where the performer can go mentally and the viewer can also
suspend everything mentally.
Unlike the original performance of Imponderabilia, MoMA create two entrances past the first
gallery—a wide arch typical of gallery entrances, and a narrower doorway to house
Imponderabilia allowing patrons to choose to enter between the nude performer, or not. This
was a major change from the original conception. Art Margins, in 201,0 echoed the
performers below: “In the first performance of Imponderabilia, which was shut down by the
police…every visitor had to squeeze through in between the naked artists in order to reach
the museum’s interior space. The decision visitors had to make before entering the gallery
was not only whether to enter or not, but also which of the two artists they would be
facing... [Imponderabilia] deals, in a 1970’s kind of way, with institutional (not just personal)
boundaries and with the role of the artists in the museum. In the MoMA version…there is no
longer any access issue. Whether or not we decide to walk in between the two naked
performers is of no consequence as no thresholds – institutional or otherwise—are
crossed. And that makes all the difference.” Concerns about patron reactions likely led to
the cautious double entrance – one “adventurous” one “safe.” The fact of the choice, which
so changes the meaning of the work, says volumes about the contested space
performance art occupies in large, traditional institutions in this century. At MoMA,
Imponderabilia was just another thing to watch. Many visitors passed through the arch,
watching others pass through what reperformer Layard Thompson called an “energetic
turn-style.” The reperformers tried to embrace “The Artist’s” vision and intent in this new
context, while, of necessity and by choice, making their role in the doorway anew. This
institutional change illustrates an ongoing question of reperformance recognized by both
artists and scholars – how, and if, to keep the force and meaning of the original in new
contexts, particularly those more accustomed to archival culture than to the sometimes
messy, constant reinvention of performance.
J.Z. Imponderabilia wasn’t the entrance to the show. Someone could come in, and look [at
the exhibit,] and not go past the people in the door. In France, [when Marina and Ulay
performed the work,] people had to go through them and that lasted about 1.5 hours
before police shut it down. [At MoMA,] if you went through it was self-selecting, the
option changed [the meaning of the work].
G.L. Imponderabilia was the most fun. You got take your clothes off, hang out in the
museum, and see how people reacted. It was the piece that allowed you to relate the
most to your partner, real eye contact. It was different with each person you worked
with. You stood naked on either side of a doorway facing another person. Once you got
set, whatever position you took, you’re not supposed to change position even if people
come by and brush you. In the original, it was [an] important [part of] that experience,
to have people who didn’t want to go through and yet had to. We only had people who
chose to go through. The size of the doorway was wider than it was for the original
piece [in the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna.] I always wanted to stand closer
to my partner so people had to squeeze past us. People would try to crawl, figure out
which way to face. One time someone walked behind me and the other reperformer
stopped them; I didn’t want anyone to be stopped. I felt whatever they wanted to do
was fine. It was fun listening to people be uncomfortable and then go through. Basically
it was like standing in Times Square.
J.S. Having the option (to enter through an un-peopled door) made [our] doorway more
like an amusement park ride; you could do this cool thing if you want. [The space
between reperformers] got closer because people took more liberties and wanted the
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
15

piece to be more like the original. I think there were some performers who wanted it to
be more challenging for the audience. I felt that a balance needed to be struck;
[reperformers should] be close enough to give people a choice about how to touch us,
and far enough [apart] so people felt free to enter. I began to think there was such a
thing as too close; some performers might disagree. If you’re too close it becomes an
aggressive act to the audience, a dare that’s alienating to them. While we wanted them
to be challenged, we [also] wanted them to take the invitation. I stood with a performer
who wanted to stand so close that the space between (us) was smaller than the space
behind, so [the] audience went behind and that was a problem. That was where you felt
fear, people said they were afraid to touch you, but it was [you] touching them [they
were afraid of.] People ducked [under and behind] so as not to touch you, but then
[they were] at the level of breasts.
L.T. For a lot (of reperformers) a score developed where you shifted your gaze from eye
contact with one another to eye contact with those passing between.
J.S. In the beginning the fact that people are not [personally] connected put an artificial
emphasis on staring. Many people got into staring into each other’s eyes [while
performing Imponderabilia.] For some it became almost an aggressive or over the top
aspect of the performance. But the question is about what it is to do this most
faithfully: physically faithfully, conceptually faithfully, emotionally faithfully? She gave
us the freedom to stand and stare, she gave us permission. I just don’t think it was
necessary or unique, I felt it didn’t need to be so highlighted. [Imponderabilia] was about
being there together in the doorway, the emphasis on being. “Yes we’re looking at each
other [just] like we’re pointing or arms down.” It’s a physical protocol... Sometimes it
doesn’t feel like anything, you’re just standing in the doorway.
Engagement
Engaging one’s partner was a highlight of the experience for many of the reperformers. Arts
Margins notes: “The works [Abramović] created with Ulay often focused on a formalized
ritual of struggle.” In my observation the reperformers choices were more about creating
and emphasizing their involvement with each other, about the relationship they were
performing.
A.L. In the beginning [performing] was very much part of these extraordinary bonds
[between] performers; it’s almost Pavlovian, almost animalistic… I guess overall [that’s]
what made performing for Mariana as good as any [performance] I’ve had; she never
told you what experience to have.
J.Z. For me the work became a lot about how people desired connection, especially in
the three pieces where we could make eye contact—all the naked pieces.
L.T. I loved Imponderabilia because it has this energetic focus that you could develop
[with your partner.] It’s similar to Point of Contact that way…they were the pieces where
I experienced the most energetic engagement [with another reperformer]. Point of
Contact felt wedded to the notion that in a piece about stillness the nature of energy
[was expressed] in backs, in [a] shifting alignment taking over the shift in the gravity in
pelvis and body. With my hair tied with another performer I felt my partner’s pulse
through the connection of our heads. That was challenging. Two-and-a-half hours of
sitting, staring at a white wall forces you to become aware of sounds and peripherally of
individuals staring through the window. [Point of Contact and Relation In Time were
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
16

performed in framed “boxes” with windows to the exhibit.] My sensory awareness of
people became very attuned. And there were instances where I knew that certain
people were there. Sometimes I knew they were coming to the exhibit that day and
sensed their presence, sometimes I just sensed that they were there.
G.L. Relation In Time was you, by yourself totally isolated. You needed to maintain
stillness for the piece to really speak. You are inside a box, a room with a view, but you
can never look outside. You can’t see each other, just the blank white wall. There was
nothing to focus on, [although for a while] blue tape was put up to focus on [but it] got
taken down. Without something to focus on you lose all perception, all relation to time.
You recognize how important it is to have something to focus on. A white void
eventually envelops you. […] For some it could be mediation, but it’s not for me. You
hear it all but you don’t see anything; you could hear voices but couldn’t see them; you
could feel your partner but couldn’t see them. You don’t know where you are or what
the time is. There is the tease of physical contact with your partner, and [the] voices
outside. […] I think the point of this piece is about being connected but not engaging. […
] In the original piece [Marina] and Ulay weren’t inside a box. I always wondered why
the museum and/or Marina decided to go with that.
D.W-S. I think one of the things Marina did well in the exhibit was to create a sense of
camaraderie between performers, not setting up a competition about who’s the best
this or that—it’s not a productive way to think or to set up a situation where people are
going to do their best work. We made a commitment, to ourselves and to one another—
we never wanted any of the works not to be occupied, to be vacant. That was something
neither the museum nor Marina asked of us; it was our decision, everyone riding on
everyone’s energy. One interesting thing for me, when I wasn’t on the floor it gave me
comfort that my fellow performers were out there performing. I couldn’t see them but I
knew they were there. That’s something unique to the MoMA retrospective. Marina
never had that; she was being Marina.
Future
J.S. Should everything be preserved in a performative way? Should they be performed?
Should they be reperformed? I’m not sure. Not because I doubt the value [of doing so,]
but how much [of the performance] is specific to her and to her body – after a while
what is authentic? I feel that way about a lot of dance. I’m not a disciple... At what point
do you embody the work and can carry it on? I defer to her in terms of what she wants
our role to be. I’m happy to speak about it, teach my experience… [though] in terms of
the task of preserving her work I defer to her to judge what our role is. But I think
there’s a question about what she thinks is her legacy. It’s important that there be a
diversity, a multitude of voices who have performed the work and different
interpretations to remind people that there is not one way. It’s important that it ends
up in print [that the voices] are heard.
G.L. What I couldn’t see at the time was the longevity of the impact. You can see how it
would impact yourself, but when you see impact on the other reperformers… I may
have a different experience, but for everyone it’s a life-changing thing, a defining event
in your life. [For] the reperformers it was our place in time, fresh and new but informed
by what had happened in the past. It’s a separate place in time.
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
17

Conclusion
10 These interviews are a small part of the conversation surrounding “reperformance” in
general and reperforming Abramović´ specifically. During the three months of the MoMA
show, and immediately following, there were myriad reviews, interviews, and articles,
some by the reperformers. In 2012 the movie Marina Abramović´: The Artist Is Present was
released generating a new spate of commentary. Here, through these performers voices,
individually and collectively, I have tried to tease out some larger issues, answers, and
questions for the future. Primary among them, “is reperformance important and what is
it to reperform?” As with earlier generations of modern dancers, it is not clear that all
performance artists think their work should be preserved or that it can exist past it’s
initial exhibition. Yet reperformance seems necessary for the work to remain vital, more
than a video archive. A balance between the original structure and intent, and new
performers’ energy, instincts, and interpretations, reperformance must acknowledge
that, like modern dance before it, it is nearly impossible for new bodies, in a different
period, to perform the exact original. The lack of physical training techniques, the fact
that performance art is built in a singular moment, on an often untrained, individual
body which is not necessarily aware of techniques of performance, much less of
movement, adds to difficulties in transmission. As the “history” of performance art is
housed in elite institutions accountable to a vast public and to organizational rules
different than that of small studios and galleries, the iconoclasm of the original must
adapt. Yet, freeing the reperformers to find the performance within their own bodies
helps maintain the inherent surprise, the intensity, and the audience connection so
important to the original. Rebecca Schneider, in her essay “Performance Remains,”
suggests that the changes—institutional or otherwise – may not matter. Through
repetition, she writes, whatever the context, in total or in fragments, “to the degree that
it remains, but remains differently…the past performed and made explicit as (live)
performance can function as the kind of bodily transmission conventional archivists
dread, a counter-memory.“ She continues citing Peggy Phelan, “performance ‘becomes
itself through’ disappearance.” Thus the interventions inherent in reperforming become
part of the performance, of its history and meaning. Undoubtly, The Artist Is Present will
impact future curatorial thinking by establishing that live reperformers require a
different type of care and service, a different curation if you will, than the static objects
museums are used to dealing in. But for all the questions it raises, it also stands as a
landmark, a new way of thinking about performance reclamation, preservation, and
change.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
18

Articles, Chapters, and Dissertations
ABRAM OVIĆ, Marina. 2006. PURE RAW Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation, PAJ 82
(Performing Arts Journal) pp. 29-50.
CESARE-BARTNICKI, T. Nikki2008. The Aestheticization of Reality: Postmodern Music, Art, and Performance,
Diss. Performance Studies/New York University, Ann Arbor: UMI, 2008. Print.
GOPNIK, Blake. 2010. On Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Museum of Modern Art, Washington
Post, 18 April.
KAPLAN, Janet A. 1999. Deeper and Deeper: Interview with Marina Abramović, Art Journal V.58 N. 2
(Summer, 1999).
LAMBERT-BEATTY, Carrie. 2010. Against performance art: Carrie Lambert-Beatty on the art of Marina
Abramović, Artforum International, May 1.
LEPECKI, André. 2010. The Body as Archive: Will to Re-Enact and the Afterlives of Dances, Dance
Research Journal, 42/2 Winter.
LEVINE, Abigail. 2010, Marina Abramović’s Time: The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art, E-
misférica/After Truth 7.2.
SANTONE, Jessica. 2008, Marina Abramović’s Seven Easy Pieces: Critical Documentation Strategies for
Preserving Art’s History, LEONARDO, V.41, N. 2 pp. 147-152.
SCHNEIDER, Rebecca. 2012, Performance Remains, Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History, Eds.
Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, pp. 137-150. (This is a
revised version of Schneider’s article by the same title from Performing Research, 2001, V. 6, N. 2,
pp.100-108.)
SIGMAN, Jill. 2011. On the Wall: Reflections On Being Present, Contact Quarterly, Annual V. 36 N. 1.
SMEE, Sebastian. 2012. Marina Abramović’: sitting in on an artist’s life, Globe, September 4.
SPIEKER, Sven. 2012. The Artist is Present: Marina Abramović at MoMA (Review Article.), Art Margins
[online], 29 May.
THURM AN, Judith. 2012. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Once Again Present, The New Yorker, 18 June.
WING-SPROUL, Deborah. 2010, The Performer Laid Bare: On taking it all off for Marina Abramović (and a
few hundred thousand voyeurs). New York, May 23.
On-Line Journals and Blogs
HALBERSTAM , Jack. 2010. “The Artist is Object—Marina Abramović at MoMA.” BullyBloggers, April
5. https://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-artist-is-object-–-marina-abramovic-at-
moma/
LA ROCCO, Claudia. 2011. “Three Reperformers from ‘Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present’
Respond to the MOCA Gala Performances”. The Performance Club, 28 November. http://
theperformanceclub.org/2011/11/three-reperformers-from-marina-abramovic-the-artist-is-
present-respond-to-the-moca-gala-performances/
NY Candre, “Marina Abramović present-ing at the MoMA.” http://flickr.com/photos/
nycandre/4635624515
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
19

NOTES
1. Opening wall text for Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, 2010, Museum of Modern Art, New
York City, March 14–May 31.
ABSTRACTS
In 2010 New York City’s Museum of Modern Art mounted a retrospective of the work of Serbian
performance artist Marina Abramović. Included in the exhibition were five live works,
“reperformances” of seminal, “durational” pieces created by Abramović between 1977 and 2005.
Abramović considers “reperformances” to be akin to musical scores, “a structure… that you can
see and then...make your own interpretation…have your own experience” while respecting “the
originality of the piece.” Coming in the wake of the deaths of early modern dance
choreographers, at a time when choreographers who came of age in the late 1950s and 1960s are
establishing a future for their work, and as the first generation of performance artists reach the
end of their careers, Abramović’s vision of “reperformance” proposes a mode and a philosophy
for continuing the life of any performance form. Through interviews, six reperformers of
Abramović’s work during the retrospective address the experience of the work, the challenges
and discoveries of reperformance, and the role of interpretation.
En 2010, le Musée d’art moderne (MoMA) de New York a présenté une rétrospective du travail de
Marina Abramović, artiste performeuse serbe. L’exposition comprenait cinq performances “live”,
des reprises de pièces fondatrices, fondées sur l’endurance, créées par Abramović entre 1977 et
2005. Abramović considère les reprises, ou “reperformances”, comme des partitions musicales,
“une structure… qu’on peut voir puis… en faire sa propre interprétation… avoir sa propre
expérience” tout en respectant “l’originalité de l’œuvre.” Apres la mort de chorégraphes des
débuts de la danse moderne, alors que les chorégraphes qui s’établirent à la fin des années 50 et
dans les années 60 assurent un avenir à leur travail et que la première génération d’artistes de
performance arrive en fin de carrière, la vision qu’Abramović a de la reprise propose une
modalité et une philosophie de perpétuation de formes performées. Dans les interviews réunies
ici, six des artistes qui ont repris le travail d’Abramović pendant la rétrospective questionnent
leur expérience sur ce travail, les défis et découvertes de la reprise, et le rôle de l’interprétation.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Abramovic (Marina), exposition, interprétation, Lai (Gary), Levine (Abigail),
performance, Sigman (Jill), reprise, MoMA, Thompson (Layard), Wing-Sproul (Deborah),
Zimmerman (Jeramy)
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
20

AUTHOR
CARRIE STERN
Carrie Stern (PhD, Performance Studies) is a dance scholar and educator. From 2006-2012 she
wrote “Dance Brooklyn” for the Brooklyn Eagle and is developing a history of dance in Brooklyn.
Her work on “whiteness” and social dance performance has been presented at a number of
conferences. She has contributed several essays to Dance Heritage Coalition’s “America’s
Irreplaceable Dance Treasures” and to Dance Teacher, Dance Magazine, Dancer Magazine/
Dance.com and the blog Classical TV, as well as other publications. Stern teaches dance history
and culture at Queens College and Queensborough Community College. A Teaching Artist in
Chicago and New York public schools for 25 years, in 2009, with musician Jessica Lurie, she
founded Yo! Poetry, a school-based, performance focused, dance, music, and poetry workshop
partially supported by grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council. Stern received a NYFA School Arts
Partnership award for “The Play’s the Thing.” A choreographer and performer originally from
Chicago, today Stern is primarily interested in improvisation. Videos of her site-specific work are
in the collection of the Chicago Public Library. Stern has sat on arts panels for both the
Westchester and the Brooklyn Arts Councils.
The artist is present in the bodies of many: Reperforming Marina Abramović
Agôn, 6 | 2013
21