Robert Wilson / Photograph © Yiorgos Kaplanidis
Toward the Unknown
By Daryl Chin
Robert Wilson, Woyzeck was Robert Wilson's third collaboration with Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, after The Black Rider (1990) and Alice (1992). The so-called "art musical" first opened at Copenhagen's Betty Nansen Teatret and the original production subsequently went on a European tour, to much international acclaim. Photo; Hansen-Hansen
The trajectory of Modernism in the arts in the United States never has been simply progressive. One of the most revelatory statements about Modernism was made by Lucinda Childs when I interviewed her for Dance Scope (the journal of the American Dance Guild) in 1976; she noted that her training as a dancer while studying at Sarah Lawrence had been very traditional; in fact, by her sophomore year she had become primarily a student of modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm, and expected the usual career for a dancer. Childs had seen the new art of the Abstract Expressionists in the galleries and museums, and realized these paintings were an expression of the shock of the new. But where could you find "the new" in the theater and the dance of the late 1950s and early 1960s? When Childs saw one of the first performances by Yvonne Rainer, she found her answer.
To anyone attendant to the theater in the 1960s, the question of Modernism seemed almost a moot point as the urgency of contemporaneity continued to exert its hold on theatrical prospectus. In the United States, Modernism in the arts centered on painting and sculpture. Of course, the intersection between the visual arts and the theater had resulted in the appearance of Happenings starting in the late 1950s, with several artists (notably Allan Kaprow and Robert Whitman) choosing to concentrate on performance as a primary medium. This is a preamble to a brief overview of the interaction of the arts which found a niche in the neighborhoods of lower Manhattan in the period following the end of World War II. One parenthetical note: any perspective from which the historical record is being written can emphasize some things and utterly ignore others. Case in point: in 1963, there was a celebrated collaboration between members of the Judson Dance Theater (including Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, Aileen Passloff, Arlene Rothlein and Joan Baker) and the Judson Poets Theater led by the Reverend Al Carmines and Lawrence Kornfeld, titled What Happened, based on a text by Gertrude Stein. Yet, in all the literature that has sprung up about the Judson Dance Theater, What Happened (in its time, highly acclaimed, given an extended off-off-Broadway run, and winner of the Obie Award) has been ignored. Its crime? Though in many ways the culmination of the Judson Dance Theater, the cardinal sin was the lack of participation of any "big name" artists (Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Morris, Charles Ross, et al).
Yvonne Rainer, We Shall Run, 1963 performed March 7, 1965 at the Wadsworth Atheneum (photo: Peter Moore, © Barbara Moore); left to right: Robert Rauschenberg (obscured), Sally Gross, Joseph Schlichter (obscured), Tony Holder, Deborah Hay, Yvonne Rainer, Alex Hay, Robert Morris (obscured), and Lucinda Childs
When Robert Wilson's death was announced on July 31, 2025, the usual encomiums proclaimed the end of an era; similar pronouncements had been made when Richard Foreman died on January 4, 2025. It is beyond the scope of my knowledge to provide detailed biographical information on these two artists, but I would like to concentrate on two aspects: first, the context from which their work evolved, and second, some impressions of their work, especially from their early days.
Though lower Manhattan was hospitable to the arts, there have been migrations to different neighborhoods. The Abstract Expressionists found their environment in Greenwich Village. Initially, the Pop and Minimal artists found refuge in neighborhoods further south. By the mid 1960s, there were outposts in the area south of Houston Street, which would be given the designation of SoHo (a tie-in to London's trendy mecca). New York City's SoHo was a forlorn neighborhood of abandoned factory buildings on desolate, deserted streets. One of the first destinations for adventurous artgoers was the space used by Richard Schechner's Performance Group, dubbed the Performance Garage. Foreman and Wilson would begin their work in this neighborhood and soon would help to define the aesthetic of SoHo. Both Foreman and Wilson had some overlap with traditional theater, but both would find alternatives which would define their artistic endeavors.
Richard Foreman, Book of Splendors (Part II), Book of Levers: Action at a Distance, 1977, Poster, 20 × 14 inches
In the case of Richard Foreman, you could not find more traditional theatrical training, including a degree from the Yale School of Drama. Foreman knew there was something else going on, and he found it in the alternative film scene headed by Jonas Mekas. At the time, one dominant trend was a formalist cinema defined as "structuralist" by the film scholar P. Adams Sitney, films in which the consciousness of form created an awareness of the physical nature of film as a projected entity. This could be found in films by such artists as Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Ernie Gehr and Paul Sharits. For Foreman, this structural awareness took the form of disruption, where he purposefully added elements, such as lights directed at the audience and loud buzzers, that interrupted dramatic continuity to provoke a consciousness in the audience of the artificiality of the theatrical experience. That awareness, that hyperconsciousness, was supposed to engender a heightened responsivity which Foreman wanted to make the focus of the theatrical experience.
The antecedents of Robert Wilson's theater were far more diverse, ranging from therapy to architecture to design. When Wilson arrived in New York City from Texas in the mid-1960s, there were many avenues for him to explore. One of his experiences involved working with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theater as the visual artist for Jean-Claude Van Itallie's America Hurrah (1966); he designed the large-scale puppets which became the representative image for the production. Another defining experience for Wilson was the therapy he was providing for many people with physical and mental disabilities, trying to help patients find balance, in some cases, literally. For Wilson, this crystallized in his working with Raymond Andrews and Christopher Knowles, two young men whom he helped to achieve greater communicability. The idea of careful, concentrated observation of a patient's movements, gestures and activities provided the focal point for Wilson. Soon, he was considering ways to provide a theatrical context to showcase the miracles of physical activity. The emphasis on the corporeality of the performer had been central to the artistic process of the Open Theater, which Wilson had observed at firsthand. In much post-modern dance, specifically Simone Forti, early Trisha Brown and early Lucinda Childs, task performance had changed the contours of dance so that the real time of activity was opposed to the musical/dramatic/narrative time of traditional dance. Gradually, Wilson started to conceive of elaborate settings in which to place the close observation of everyday activity, observations which, through extended temporality, became a theatrical form of contemplation.
The Motel dolls in Jean-Claude van Itallie’s America Hurrah writing graffiti n the motel walls. Dolls made by Robert Wilson. America Hurrah premiered Off Broadway in November, 1966.
Both Foreman and Wilson wanted to expand the parameters of theater but within the format of traditional theatrical presentation: there was always the separation of audience and performance. In both cases, the aim of their enterprises was a redefinition of theatrical intent. They were attempting to direct attention from traditional theatrical norms. In Foreman's case, the disruptive jolts were his means of provoking a heightened awareness, a sharpening of perception. In Wilson's case, the attenuated concentration was the focus of his elaborate scenography, a way of asserting the primacy of everyday movement as the becalmed object of contemplation. Thus, in the late 1960s, these two artistic explorers found a home in the deserted industrial landscape of New York City's SoHo, where they experimented with ways to redefine perception and attention to provide illumination which could enable a glimpse of the sublime.
Daryl Chin is an artist, critic and curator who has been part of the New York City art world for 40 years. As a curator, he held a residency at the Department of Film of The Museum of Modern Art (1978-80); he has served as a guest curator at The Whitney Museum of American Art among others. As a critic, he began his career as Managing Editor of Film Culture magazine (1976-77); he was Associate Editor of PAJ (Performing Arts Journal) from 1989 to 2004. His essays are included in such anthologies as Asia in New York City: A Cultural Guide (2000), M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism, edited by Susan Bee and Mira Schor (2000), Tokens? The NYC Asian American Experience On Stage, edited by Alvin Eng (1999), Queer Looks, edited by Martha Gever, John Greyson and Pratibha Parmar, and Mediating History, edited by Barbara Abrash and Catherine Egan (1992). As a performance artist, he has created over 30 performance pieces from 1976 to 1985. His play The Dialectic of Enlightenment was published by Theatre Communications Group as part of their Plays-in-Process series in 1983.
Daryl Chin
Photo: Deanna Sirlin