Judson Dance Theater


Judson Dance Theater,

a loose collective of dancers, musicians, and visual artists that produced an influential series of avant-garde performance pieces at Judson Memorial Church in New York City's Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village
, residential district of lower Manhattan, New York City, extending S from 14th St. to Houston St. and W from Washington Square to the Hudson River. North of the main settlement of New York City in colonial times, in the 1830s it became an exclusive residential
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 between 1962 and 1964. Growing out of classes taught by Robert Dunn at the studio of modern dancer Merce CunninghamCunningham, Merce
(Mercier Philip Cunningham), 1919–2009, American modern dancer and choreographer, b. Centralia, Wash. Cunningham studied modern dance with Martha Graham and ballet at Balanchine's School of American Ballet.
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, the performances featured works by Trisha BrownBrown, Trisha,
1936–2017, American dancer and choreographer acclaimed for having revolutionized modern dance in the late 20th cent., b. Aberdeen, Wash. After studying dance at Mills College (B.A.
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, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Deborah Hay, and others. The artists Robert RauschenbergRauschenberg, Robert
, 1925–2008, American painter, b. Port Arthur, Tex., as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, and at New York's Art Students League.
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 and Robert MorrisMorris, Robert
(Robert Eugene Morris), 1931–2018, American artist, b. Kansas City, Mo., studied Kansas City Art Institute, California School of Fine Arts, Reed College. He settled in New York City in 1959.
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, the composer John CageCage, John,
1912–92, American composer, b. Los Angeles. A leading figure in the musical avant-garde from the late 1930s, he attended Pomona College and later studied with Arnold Schoenberg, Adolph Weiss, and Henry Cowell.
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, and other visual artists and composers were also involved, expanding the interpretation of dance to include other art forms. Individual choreographers subsequently further explored the philosophy and concepts of the group, including in multimedia performances and happeningshappening,
an artistic event of a theatrical nature, but usually improvised spontaneously without the framework of a plot. The term originated with the creation and performance in 1959 of Allan Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 Parts.
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.