Dancing with Holl

John Hill

12. January 2016

Photo: Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects

Architect Steven Holl and choreographer Jessica Lang collaborated last year on Tesseracts of Time, which premiered in November at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago. Watch the two discuss their collaboration, and watch excerpts from the first performance.

According to Steven Holl Architects:

Both Architecture and dance share a passion for space and light in time, however they are on opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to time. Architecture is one of the arts of longest duration, while the realization of a dance piece can be a quick process and the work disappears as the performance of it unfolds. Here the two merge.

Tesseracts of Time was choreographed to correspond to what Holl calls the "four types of architecture: (1.) Under the ground (2.) In the ground (3.) On the ground (4.) Over the ground." With each type corresponding to a season, the performance compresses one year into twenty minutes – at the same rate a human life would last four years!

To watch Lang and Holl discuss the piece, visit 32BNY.

To watch excerpts of the first performance, visit Steven Holl Architects' website.