YVONNE RAINER RoS INDEXICAL
Digital Beta PAL & NTSC Master Tape 42 minutes
RoS or Rite of Spring or even better Riot at the Rite of Spring is Yvonne Rainer’s complex reinvention of what has been imagined, reconstituted and invented of Nijinski’s fabulously controversial choreography on Stravinsky’s score of “Le Sacre du Printemps”.
Rainer continuing on the tradition of deconstruction that she used in her AG Indexical with a little help from HM paired Stravinsky with the ambiance of chaos reinvented in a BBC documentary of the Riot at the first performance in Mai 1913 and paired Nijinski with Robin Williams and television.
The filmmaker’s dilemma was to master a single take of 42 minutes showing the movement as well as deconstructing it. Sound mix and framing are the only tools.
Dancers: Patricia Hoffbauer, Sally Silvers, Emily Coates, and Pat Catterson.
Choreographed by Yvonne Rainer
Music: Igor Stravinsky as reproduced for the soundtrack of Riot at the Rite, courtesy of the BBC.
Choreographic Assistants: Pat Catterson
Music Consultant: Pat Catterson,
Shot at the Hudson Theater in New York City on November 19, 2007.
Original production commissioned by Performa and Documenta 12
A film by Babette Mangolte © 2008 BM
