Why Pageant Is Suddenly All the Rage
In a world skewed toward artifice, the East Williamsburg performance space’s commitment to confronting, rather than escaping, one’s conditions in art feels like a renaissance.
On a Friday in late August, a group of people gathered in a small museum space to witness choreographer Isa Spector transform a red platform into a makeshift canvas for her art. Struggling to complete her 10-minute task, Spector eventually understood the essence of what she needed to paint. Within seconds, five performers adorned in red gloves joined her, forming a circle and creating a living replica of the famous Matisse painting on display just above them.
The five artists, Sharleen Chidiac, Lili Dekker, Jade Manns, Owen Prum, and Alexa West, are the founders of Pageant, an artist-run performance space in Brooklyn that was part of a month-long residency at MoMA during August. Pageant's seven-hour MoMA performance marathon, with Spector's performance being the first, marked the beginning of a series of seven 10-minute shows exploring the connections between dance and visual art.
West, one of the co-founders, explained that the history of dance has evolved from a pictorial form, breaking away from the traditional ballet proscenium stage and modernism, and heading towards postmodernism. The Pageant space was initially just a place for its founders to create context for their work in the post-COVID era, as there were limited opportunities for performances at their stage of artmaking.
Chidiac and West emphasized that they didn't intend for Pageant to become an institution; they simply needed a place to work, showcase their art, and share other artists' work.
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