0:00:07.660,0:00:11.780 [Janine Antoni: Collaborating with Stephen[br]Petronio] 0:00:16.980,0:00:23.020 [Stephen Petronio Company] 0:00:41.480,0:00:43.940 [PETRONIO] I worked very hard to develop 0:00:43.950,0:00:46.379 a very succinct and idiosyncratic 0:00:46.379,0:00:49.129 and highly-nuanced language-- 0:00:49.129,0:00:50.560 and I'm in my mid-fifties-- 0:00:50.560,0:00:51.500 [Stephen Petronio, Choreographer] 0:00:51.520,0:00:53.340 and it took a long time to establish that. 0:00:53.340,0:00:54.489 Now that I have, 0:00:54.489,0:00:56.789 I'm kind of like, "Now what?" 0:00:57.539,0:00:59.010 The stereotype of dance is that 0:00:59.010,0:01:01.230 if we exist in this ethereal plane, 0:01:01.899,0:01:04.920 our work does disappear as we do it, 0:01:04.920,0:01:06.250 and that's the best part of it: 0:01:06.250,0:01:09.110 the moment is precious because it goes away. 0:01:09.110,0:01:11.220 You just get a glimpse of a movement, 0:01:11.220,0:01:12.190 and you have to chase it 0:01:12.190,0:01:13.920 or try to hold it in your memory, but... 0:01:13.920,0:01:15.400 ["Lick and Lather", Janine Antoni] 0:01:15.400,0:01:17.660 a sculpture, you can look at from all sides 0:01:17.660,0:01:18.880 for as long as you want 0:01:18.880,0:01:20.470 to stay in the room with it. 0:01:20.470,0:01:23.300 So, I got very jealous with that. 0:01:23.300,0:01:25.140 I'm absolutely obsessed and in love 0:01:25.140,0:01:26.960 with the visual world. 0:01:28.250,0:01:29.550 I knew of Janine's work 0:01:29.550,0:01:31.090 before I knew Janine. 0:01:31.720,0:01:32.509 I've worked with people like 0:01:32.509,0:01:33.399 Cindy Sherman 0:01:33.399,0:01:34.479 and Anish Kapoor-- 0:01:34.479,0:01:35.839 ["Loving Care", Janine Antoni] 0:01:35.840,0:01:38.259 visual artists who I would share the space[br]with, 0:01:38.259,0:01:39.690 but they had their territory 0:01:39.690,0:01:40.610 and I had mine. 0:01:40.610,0:01:42.770 Well, with Janine I felt that, 0:01:42.770,0:01:44.500 because she was a performer as well, 0:01:44.500,0:01:46.700 that she would invade me in a way, 0:01:46.700,0:01:49.340 and I very much wanted to be invaded. 0:01:52.000,0:01:54.800 [ANTONI] I was asked by the choreographer, 0:01:54.800,0:01:55.720 Stephen Petronio, 0:01:55.720,0:01:57.110 to do the visuals for 0:01:57.110,0:01:59.000 a piece he was working on called 0:01:59.000,0:02:01.349 "Like Lazarus Did". 0:02:01.349,0:02:03.500 He was interested in notions 0:02:03.500,0:02:05.879 of transcendence and elevation. 0:02:05.879,0:02:09.729 ["Like Lazarus Did", The Joyce Theater, NYC] 0:02:10.360,0:02:12.420 I spent a lot of time watching him 0:02:12.420,0:02:14.030 choreograph the piece, 0:02:14.030,0:02:16.530 and spent time with the dancers. 0:02:17.660,0:02:20.700 One thing that is very evident in his work 0:02:20.700,0:02:22.390 is that it has this kind of 0:02:22.390,0:02:25.140 exuberance and complexity. 0:02:25.140,0:02:26.100 So when I looked at the work, 0:02:26.100,0:02:27.980 I said, what I would like to do is 0:02:27.980,0:02:30.880 to offer him stillness. 0:02:30.880,0:02:33.530 And rather than make a set for the dance, 0:02:33.530,0:02:36.980 I would perform as well. 0:02:37.600,0:02:40.220 For two hours during the performance 0:02:40.230,0:02:42.730 I lay completely still. 0:02:43.540,0:02:45.060 [PETRONIO] She was meditating, really, 0:02:45.070,0:02:46.320 on her body, 0:02:46.320,0:02:47.920 as the audience was looking 0:02:47.920,0:02:49.570 at our body. 0:02:49.570,0:02:51.260 She was absolutely still 0:02:51.260,0:02:53.240 in a meditation 0:02:53.240,0:02:54.910 on her form 0:02:54.910,0:02:55.830 and her own death 0:02:55.830,0:02:59.670 against the chaotic look of the stage. 0:03:03.620,0:03:05.560 [ANTONI] Stephen's cousin was having a baby, 0:03:05.560,0:03:08.400 and she kept sending him sonograms. 0:03:08.400,0:03:09.680 And he looked at these images 0:03:09.680,0:03:11.150 and used them as 0:03:11.150,0:03:14.450 positions to choreograph one of his dancers, 0:03:14.450,0:03:16.010 Nick Sciscione, 0:03:16.010,0:03:17.490 for the last dance of 0:03:17.490,0:03:19.550 "Like Lazarus Did". 0:03:20.180,0:03:21.580 When he was making that dance, 0:03:21.580,0:03:23.530 I said, "Stephen, we should do it in honey," 0:03:23.530,0:03:27.790 "because honey looks like amniotic fluid." 0:03:27.790,0:03:28.790 And then, of course, 0:03:28.790,0:03:31.770 it was impossible to do on a stage. 0:03:32.610,0:03:36.069 We were very interested in making a video 0:03:36.069,0:03:40.089 where one could not feel gravity. 0:03:43.720,0:03:46.800 ["Honey Baby"] 0:03:50.580,0:03:52.160 Having had a child, 0:03:52.170,0:03:55.080 it's miraculous that a body 0:03:55.080,0:03:57.430 can grow another body-- 0:03:57.430,0:03:58.880 that one body grows 0:03:58.880,0:04:01.280 from the nutrients of another body. 0:04:01.740,0:04:02.860 [PETRONIO] So there is kind of 0:04:02.870,0:04:05.310 a womb-like viscus body 0:04:05.310,0:04:06.500 moving through viscus liquid 0:04:06.500,0:04:07.599 at a very slow 0:04:07.599,0:04:10.339 and infinitesimal level. 0:04:12.530,0:04:14.349 Just the smallest movement of the finger-- 0:04:14.349,0:04:15.819 and the spread of the toes 0:04:15.819,0:04:17.529 and the arch of the head-- 0:04:17.529,0:04:18.370 took me, you know... 0:04:18.370,0:04:21.190 a place that I would never go on stage. 0:04:21.190,0:04:22.960 There was a kind of intimacy 0:04:22.960,0:04:25.560 that I long for on stage, 0:04:25.560,0:04:26.940 but I couldn't have on stage, 0:04:26.940,0:04:29.490 so "Honey Baby" led me to that, 0:04:29.490,0:04:32.150 and the camera led me to that. 0:04:33.320,0:04:34.380 Janine didn't invite me 0:04:34.380,0:04:36.610 to make a dance for her sculpture; 0:04:36.610,0:04:37.889 she invited me to collaborate with her 0:04:37.889,0:04:39.489 as a visual artist. 0:04:39.920,0:04:40.680 Janine and I were both 0:04:40.680,0:04:42.340 pushing Nick around verbally 0:04:42.340,0:04:43.460 in that process. 0:04:43.460,0:04:44.700 So she was getting in my face 0:04:44.700,0:04:45.580 movement-wise, 0:04:45.580,0:04:46.660 and I was getting in her face 0:04:46.660,0:04:48.420 sculpture-wise. 0:04:49.680,0:04:51.920 People find it very hard to understand that 0:04:51.930,0:04:53.790 we did this together, 0:04:53.790,0:04:55.080 because they want to think of me 0:04:55.090,0:04:55.880 as the choreographer 0:04:55.880,0:04:56.780 and her as the sculptor. 0:04:56.780,0:04:59.780 But we really tried to erase that line. 0:04:59.780,0:05:01.720 We continue to try to erase that line, 0:05:01.720,0:05:03.190 and we're working together on future projects 0:05:03.190,0:05:05.250 to do that.