The Image Falls Apart, 2026

two-channel projected video, no sound, 16 minutes 14 seconds

The Image Falls Apart begins with a reduced tableau vivant of Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent from the Cross (ca.1435). Utilizing two movement scores (one for each channel), an ensemble of six dancers oscillate through ten figural shapes from the painting, relying on this vocabulary during frameworks of improvisation. Channel 1 (left) prompts the ensemble to disintegrate, cycle, and pull the image apart, stretching it forward and backward through space. In Channel 2 (right), the ensemble assembles as a mirror image of Channel 1, adhering to a more restrained structure, replacing and removing bodies from the starting tableau until the entire group has exited the frame. New pathways for meaning arise as the ensemble replicates, destroys, and transforms the painting's logic. The Image Falls Apart engages The Descent’s multivalent interpretative potential not only as a form of visual exegesis, but also as a container for embodied research and representational intervention.

Ensemble:
Lea D’Arminio
Isabelle King
Olivia Moon
Jessica T. Pearson
Sasha Peterson
Stephanie Turner

Choreographic Support: Shura Baryshnikov