Elena Dahn, Pendiente, 2024. Performance at PROA21, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
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About the exhibition
Movements Toward Freedom, on view at MCA Denver September 20, 2024-February 2, 2025, will explore the power, possibility, and vulnerability of bodily movement in contemporary life.
Linking physical and social definitions of movement, Movements Toward Freedom examines how the articulation of our bodies, collectively and singularly, informs and shapes a vital society. Showcasing recent work and new commissions that span genres of performance, sculpture, video, painting and installation, the exhibition considers the ways that physical movement plays an integral role in exercising personal and collective agency, as a means for community-building, civic change and liberation, as well as serving as an antidote to strife and a vehicle for healing and care.
Exhibiting artists: Sadie Barnette, Ben Coleman, Elena Dahn, Karon Davis, Brendan Fernandes, GeoVanna Gonzalez, EJ Hill, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, tara jae, Steffani Jemison, Liz Magic Laser, Carolyn Lazard, Francisco Masó, Senga Nengudi, Kambui Olujimi, Ronny Quevedo, Eric-Paul Riege, Davina Semo, Laura Shill, Naama Tsabar and Cosmo Whyte.
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Curated by
Leilani Lynch, MCA Denver's Associate Curator
Leilani Lynch, MCA Denver's Associate Curator
On view from
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Major funding for Movements is generously provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for Movements is provided by the Hollingsworth Foundation. MCA Denver also thanks the citizens of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) for their support of the exhibition.
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Movements Performances
Time-based programming is core to the framework of the Movements exhibition. Many of the artists in the show expand on their installations and sculptures through performances. Over half of the works on view will be activated during monthly programming of activations by the artists, performances with local dancers, and participatory events. This exhibition will host the most accompanying programs of any project MCA Denver has organized to-date.
Performances take place in the galleries and are FREE with museum admission (with the exception of Steffani Jemison’s performance at the Holiday Theater).
Brendan Fernandes: Within Seeing
When: 9/20/24 @ 6PM; 10/26/24 from 11AM–3PM; 10/27/24 from 11AM–3PM; 12/7/24 from 11AM–3PM; 12/8/24 from 11AM–3PM
Within Seeing is a choreographed performance that explores collective movement and the dynamics of visibility and opacity through Fernandes’ installation We came to dance.
GeoVanna Gonzalez: PLAY, LAY, AYE ACT: 7
When: 9/21/24 @ 1PM & 1:30PM; 11/23/24 @ 1PM & 1:30PM; 11/24/24 @ 1PM & 1:30PM
PLAY, LAY, AYE ACT: 7, from exhibiting artist GeoVanna Gonzalez is a choreographed performance featuring dancers and musicians that explores the paradox of being both unseen and visible and navigating spaces where recognition and acknowledgment intersect with the freedom to redirect oneself.
Elena Dahn: Delta
When: 9/21/24 @ 3PM
Elena Dahn will perform within her latex-based painting, stretching the material almost to the point of breaking.
Eric-Paul Riege: Jaatloh4Ye’iitsoh [15-16]
When: 9/21/24 from NOON–1PM & 2–3:45PM
The artist will perform a durational ‘weaving dance’ in and around with his soft sculpture work Jaatloh4Ye’iitsoh [15-16].
Presenting Denver Activation
When: 9/28/24 - ALL DAY
Presenting Denver invites multiple dance companies and artists to respond to and activate the Movements exhibition from the bottom to the top.
Laura Shill: Working On Myself
When: 10/6/24 from 10AM–5PM; 11/17/24 from 10AM–5PM; 1/18/25 from 10AM–5PM
Working on Myself presents a “loneliness gym,” where Laura Shill's contraptions are outfitted with cast silicone hands and reimagined to apply various forms of touch, as demonstrated by Shill herself and her collaborator John Lake.
Ronny Quevedo w/ Presenting Denver: At The Line
When: 12/7/24; 12/8/24
At the Line is a floor installation made of reclaimed wood sourced from a professional basketball court. Quevado breaks apart the floor and reconfigures it to make a new floor-based artwork where the Dance Collective, Presenting Denver, will perform.
Liz Magic Laser, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Ronny Quevedo, etc. | Workout Circuit - Activation of Contensiones, Exorcise 1-8, At the line
When: 1/8/25; 1/15/25; 1/22/25; 1/29/25
In a fitness-focused “workout circuit” on the museum’s second floor. Visitors will start with breathwork exercises led by a kundalini yoga instructor at Liz Magic Laser’s work Exorcise 1-8.
Karlo Andrei Ibarra’s work Contenciones will be activated through a yoga class in front of his installation. The class will conclude with cardio-based exercises on Ronny Quevedo’s At the Line. Guests are encouraged to have happy hour on the roof following the class.
Steffani Jemison and Quincy Flowers | Flight Theater
When: 1/31/25; 2/1/25
Steffani Jemison’s new commission Flight Theater, features two voices in dialogue, one obsessed with meteorology and one sharing a series of desperate escapes. Flight Theater is an interdisciplinary mediation on the fantasy of a God’s eye view, the possibility of escape, and the enduring seduction of untethering ourselves from earth. This performance is ticketed separately and will take place at the Holiday Theater.