“A System in Collapse Is a System Moving Forward”

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Before passing away as a result of AIDS in 1988, photographer, choreographer, and dancer Arnie Zane said to his artistic and life partner Bill T. Jones, “A system in collapse is a system moving forward.”
Spanish dancer and Venezuelan dancer will perform an original piece named after that quote. Set to a lecture by Jon Greenberg, a member of ACT UP NY and brother of dancers and choreographers Neil and Renni Greenberg, who was speaking at Arteleku in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1992, the dance powerfully explores the impact of AIDS on the queer dance community. Galí and Piña evoke the ghosts of those who perished, and, through the creative emphasis on tact and contact as survival strategies, challenge the taboo on touching that AIDS brought.
Encouraging the audience to bear witness to the traces of trauma associated with the loss, illness, and mortality caused by the AIDS virus while gesturing towards an aesthetic, ethical, and political transformation, the dance performance-lecture will be followed by a roundtable discussion and reception.
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Related event:
Contact Improvisation Workshop with Aimar Pérez Galí
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, from 5 to 7 p.m.
USC FIsher Museum of Art Courtyard
For more info, click .

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by Jennifer Miller (Visual Studies Research Institute) and Julian Gutierrez-Albilla (Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Comparative Literature). Co-sponsored by USC Visual Studies Research Institute and the Instituto Cervantes of Los Angeles and the USC Kaufman School of Dance.

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