Yvonne Rainer: Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019

The life and afterlife of Rainer’s landmark dance, with archival documentation and contemporary responses

Yvonne Rainer’s 1965 performance Parts of Some Sextets, for 10 people and 12 mattresses, represents a turning point in the American choreographer’s oeuvre. Built on her formative years with the Judson Dance Theater, "my mattress monster," as Rainer calls it, was where she asserted her exploration of "ordinary" actions and her disregard for narrative constructions, creating an intricate choreography with a new scene every 30 seconds. More than half a century after its premiere, Rainer, in collaboration with dance artist Emily Coates, directed the 2019 revival of the piece for the Performa 19 Biennial in New York. Remembering a Dance focuses on the two distinct occurrences of this single dance. In this book, exquisitely designed by Nick Mauss, previously unpublished archival images and documents from the 1965 stagings at the Judson Memorial Church in New York and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford resonate with contemporary responses and pose questions about the trajectories of artworks, performers and audiences.