Reception
Thursday | August 23 | 6 to 8pm
Bebe Miller: Tracing History explores choreographer Bebe Miller's history of dance innovation, from her earliest days as part of the downtown New York City contemporary dance scene to her current dual role as artistic director of Bebe Miller Company and Ohio State Department of Dance faculty member.
Costumes, sets, notation, rehearsal and performance documentation, music, conversations with peers, and a new installation by New York City video artist Maya Ciarrocchi take the viewer inside Miller's ideas and achievements. Viewers can examine Miller’s choreographic process through recorded conversations, archival ephemera, interactive installations, and performance as well as through several lecture/demonstrations, tours and gallery talks that will take place in the gallery. Thursday evenings during the exhibition the gallery will transform into SPACE IS THE PLACE, a downtown collision of dance, visual art, and music with a broad range of musicians performing in response to Bebe Miller’s work, with food and drink provided by a rotating cast of local vendors.
The exhibition is curated by the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Jerry Dannemiller, through a project developed at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Tracing History will complement the world premiere performances of Bebe Miller Company’s next major work, A History, to be staged September 27-30 at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Spread the word about the exhibition... Please share the Bebe Miller: Tracing History promotional video with friends.
Exhibition Gallery Guide
Join us for two special programs in conjunction with Tracing History:
Gallery Talk and Tour
Artist's Salon with Bebe Miller Company
About Bebe Miller
Bebe Miller has been making dances for over 30 years and formed Bebe Miller Company in the mid 1980s. Known for a mix of virtuosic dancing and fundamental humanity, her choreography has been produced at major dance centers throughout the US and abroad. In addition to her ongoing work with her ensemble, Miller has received commissions from Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Philadanco, Phoenix Dance Company in Great Britain and Johannesburg’s PATH Dance Company, among other groups across the country and abroad. She has received four Bessie Awards for choreography and direction, fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council, and is a United States Artists Ford Fellow. Currently a Full Professor in Dance at The Ohio State University, she serves on the boards of Danspace Project and Bearnstow, and is a member of the International Artists Advisory Board of the Wexner Center for the Arts. More recently, Miller was named one of 21 of “America’s most vital and productive performing artists” in the first class of Doris Duke Artists, sharing a total of $5.775 million awarded in a new initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Funding Credits
Bebe Miller: Tracing History is made possible at OSU Urban Arts Space with support from Ohio State’s Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, as well as Ohio State’s Arts Initiative. Additional support is provided by the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Performing Arts program.
The exhibition is made possible by the Contemporary Art Centers (CAC) network, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), with major support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. CAC is comprised of leading art centers and brings together performing arts curators to support collaboration and work across disciplines, and is an initiative of NEFA's National Dance Project. Wexner Center for the Arts’ Performing Arts program is a member of CAC.
Bebe Miller: Tracing History is curated by Jerry Dannemiller, Wexner Center for the Arts, through a project developed at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) program at Wesleyan University. Peter Taub, Director of Performance Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, served as ICPP project advisor. Curatorial assistance is provided by Emily S. Davis in Ohio State’s Department of Theatre and Erin Carlisle Norton in Ohio State’s Department of Dance.
The Tracing History e-book is co-produced by Bebe Miller Company and the Wexner Center for the Arts, assisted by Erica Anderson and Adam Tracht. Gallery talks, lectures, performances, and e-book development are supported by the Urban Arts Space, Time Warner Cable, Vital Film Works, Columbus Food League, donewaiting.com, and Ohio State’s Department of Dance.
