A collaboration between Pieter Performance Space and The Box, Knees, Schools, Urges is a performance program and exhibition which invites ten dancers / artists to grapple with documented and undocumented histories of early 20th century modern dance in the place now known as Los Angeles. An examination of the absence of archived history of dance and dancers in the region, and the undersung work that historically minoritized artists have done in the field, the project looks both forward and backward, approaching the timeframe of the exhibition as an opportunity to document and create an archive which acknowledges the value of short-term local history as an ongoing project for present and future generations. This project is the culminating event of Pieter Parking Space’s six month residency at The Box, where an accessible dance platform was installed in The Box’s parking lot to give six Los Angeles-based choreographers space and time to develop new work. For Knees, Schools, Urges this same platform will be housed inside The Box’s gallery, functioning as a stage, a sculptural object, and a space for visitors to rest, read, and remember. Primarily funded by a Mike Kelley Foundation Project Award, newly commissioned dances explore embodied lineage and learning through transmissions and articulations, carving out of devotions and defections, to and from the multifaceted form of dance. These artists working in dance and related disciplines situate themselves as both descendants and ancestors, positing their work as conveyors of corporeal, sensual, theoretical, and spiritual knowledge tumbling back and forth within non-linear, non-secular relations of past, present, future. Comprised of performance, installation, moving image, textiles, sound/music, and writings, the project considers dancing, making, envisioning, relating, and survival itself as historical methods. Taking a corporeal and sensual approach to “doing history,” there will be dialogue and educational programs facilitated by dance artists, organizers, and scholars that will include improvisation, meditation, working within movement scores, and responding to poetic prompts—unearthing what it means to come-to-be a body that moves today. The project holds space for dance and choreographic practice, producing new ways of knowing and understanding, engaging histories of oppression, colonization, and exploitation, with possibilities of transformation and deepened relation across subjectivity and generation. The project also seeks to educate about the processes and practices of dance that art institutions seek to undertake, often without knowledge of the history and understanding of the conditions that bodies need to produce it. A thoughtful dialogue between artists and organizations with deep investment in performance and the performing arts, Knees, Schools, Urges is an intentional coming-together of dance and visual art thinking, curating, and expression, highlighting the interdisciplinary and relational nature of all artistic efforts. To hold onto a medium and to not know how to survive. To tap the back space. To confront the historical fact of federally imposed corporeal control on Native people dancing. To claim entitlement to space. To be zoned out. To bury your dead in a place, and to call that place your home. To grapple with darkness - where you can’t use your vision. To feel time, to work with it in a very specific way. To be involved in survival and have had no time for learning. To set up new conditions. To not try to do anything new. To make forms and shapes which emerge from a place beyond what’s personal. To build techniques to anchor what wants to float away. To tattoo your knee - Feelings are facts. To speculate on the kinetics of a still image. To muddy the aspects of what got preserved. To dance with both deer hoof and church organ. To say it’s okay to hold both. To be an avatar, a statue that has come to life. To use scraps from your past projects. To have as much salt in your body as seawater. To see the bodies performing inside the bodies performing. To write it all down like a web. To acknowledge there is risk present here. To hope that all of that can happen in a particular session. Compilation text comprised of commissioned artists’ voices and thoughts from conversations and correspondence between 2019-2022, edited by the curators. Performance Schedule Friday, June 3 4:30p Neha Choksi* 6p Alison D’Amato 7p Milka Djordjevich 8p opening gathering led by devika v wickremesinghe Saturday, June 4 3:30p Jacqueline Shea Murphy (lecture) 5:30p Peter Hernández 6p Milka Djordjevich Thursday, June 9 6p Jmy James Kidd & Tara Jane O’Neil Saturday, June 11 1p Sebastian Hernandez 5:05p-8:05p taisha paggett Sunday, June 12 8:05a-11:05a taisha paggett** Thursday, June 16 unspecified performance times through the day between 11a-6p Jmy James Kidd & Perin Hailey McNelis 6p Alison D’Amato 7p Peter Hernández Friday, June 17 5p Ajani Brannum (workshop) Saturday, June 18 3p Sebastian Hernandez 6p Jmy James Kidd & Perin Hailey McNelis 7p closing gathering *This performance has been co-commissioned by Pieter and Armory Center for the Arts and is part of how we are in time and space: Annotations. Major support for the exhibition how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Barbara T. Smith and its related public programs comes from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts and the Pasadena Art Alliance, with generous support from the Michael Asher Foundation. The exhibition and its programs have been organized by Michael Ned Holte. **this is a space that prioritizes Black people, people of all identities are welcome, but if you are not Black, please attend as a respectful guest in a Black space. Please visit www.pieterpasd.com for a detailed schedule.