A sculptural-choreographic work evolving the collaboration between Martha Friedman and Susan Marshall. Working with industrial objects and materials such as rubber and metal, dancers activate sculptures in complex patterns, probing preconceptions of the material boundaries of the body. The patterns of action and design explore the tensions between work and product, danger and intimacy, absurdity and purpose, soft and hard, in and out—complicating expectations of clear, binary contrasts often raised in gendered conversations about physical bodies. In this iteration of Two Person Operating System, the second in an ongoing series of works from sculptor Friedman and choreographer Marshall, two towers of metal tubes are each capable of supporting metal spikes and rotating in place. Long, fleshy rubber ropes are inserted, spooled and twisted through the sculpture and to the surrounding architecture by dancers engaging with the objects and each other in a series of methodical tasks performed with workerly precision.
New York City, NY; NYC