Whether in art forms or houses, Ralph Lemon makes a habit of defying limitations.
This weekend Duke Performances will present How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?, a new multimedia dance performance by choreographer and conceptual artist Ralph Lemon. As part of his one-week residency at Duke, Lemon and six performers will also lead dance master classes, host discussions and hold open rehearsals.
Lemon is no stranger to the world of dance and interdisciplinary art. He has worked with well-known dance companies such as José Limón Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Bebe Miller Company, as well as with groundbreaking performance artists like Meredith Monk.
Lemon’s own work is distinct, however, because it emphasizes collaboration: He works with independent dancers rather than a set company, incorporates his own anthropological and visual work into his performances and seeks out artists in other fields to help design his pieces.
“[Lemon’s] work encompasses dance, film, theater, photography, visual art—he’s sort of an integrated, mixed-media artist, someone who uses all of those tools rather fearlessly in pursuit of the kinds of questions that he’s asking in his work,” Director of Duke Performances Aaron Greenwald said.
How Can You Stay in the House All Day explores Lemon’s relationship with Walter Carter, a 102-year-old former sharecropper from Mississippi who passed away this year. Accordingly, the three parts of the piece conjure ideas of life, loss and the emotive depths of humanity. Though the performance is segmented, the themes intermingle with, and are dependent on, the performers’ enactive physicality and use of the space. For example, while one part involves physically rigorous movement sequences, another features Lemon’s narration of a video exploring possible manifestations of grief.
The piece draws inspiration from Lemon’s previous works, especially 2005’s Geography Trilogy, which showcased Lemon’s experiences in Africa, Asia and the American South.
Greenwald said the Geography Trilogy is notable for its emotional intensity and unique performance elements.
“The visuals he was creating were sculptural and stunningly beautiful,” Greenwald said. “There was a quality to the work that he was constantly challenging your expectations of what you were supposed to see in theater—especially what dance is supposed to look like in theater.”
By utilizing different mediums, Lemon resists labeling his work as one artistic form. Instead, he seeks to reformulate how dance and movement are constructed, circulated and mediated by the audience.
Set and video designer Jim Findlay created “Meditation,” a video installation that accompanies How Can You Stay in the House All Day.
“There is definitely a different head space with dance that I really didn’t have much experience with prior to working with Ralph,” Findlay wrote in an e-mail. “And then of course, Ralph is trying to either do away with or surpass dance in his work anyway.”
Lemon’s strategic break from more one-track art forms goes beyond his upcoming performances of How Can You Stay in the House All Day. His 2006 video installation “Walter Repairing Records,” featuring the same Walter of How Can You Stay in the House All Day, is currently on display as part of The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Nasher Museum of Art.
Wendy Livingston, manager of marketing and communications at the Nasher, stressed the importance of engaging with mixed-media art in multiple ways.
“When the Nasher presents any exhibition, we look for ways to explore art through different forms of expression: dance, film, music,” Livingston said. “[This method] is conceptual, it’s contemporary, it’s subjective.”
Subjective engagement is key in Lemon’s work. Although his art leans toward the abstract and experimental, it is relatable through its universal themes.
“The root of experimental is experiment,” Greenwald said. “If experiment works, the idea is rendered more accessible. That’s my hope with this piece.”
How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? will run Nov. 5 and 6 at 8 p.m. in Reynolds Theater. Tickets are available at tickets.duke.edu and at the Duke University Box Office. Ralph Lemon will discuss his work tonight at 7 p.m. at the Nasher. “Meditation” will be on view in Shaefer Theater Nov. 5 and 6 from 5 p.m to 11 p.m. and Nov. 7 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
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