Sarah Michelson: Devotion Study #1--The American Dancer

Devotion Study #1—The American Dancer


Balanchine: Superficial Europeans are accustomed to say that American artists have no “soul.” This is wrong. America has its own spirit—cold, crystalline, luminous, hard as light. . . . Good American dancers can express clean emotion in a manner that might almost be termed angelic. By angelic I mean the quality supposedly enjoyed by the angels, who, when they relate a tragic situation, do not themselves suffer

Created by Sarah Michelson
Dancers: Nicole Mannarino, Eleanor Hullihan, Maggie Cloud, James Tyson, Moriah Evans, Kira Alker, Charlotte Cullinan
Visual Design: Sarah Michelson
Lighting Design: Sarah Michelson and Zack Tinkelman
Floor Design: Sarah Michelson and Zack Tinkelman
Neon: Charlotte Cullinan, Sarah Michelson and Parker Lutz
Costumes: Sarah Michelson and James Kidd
Tailors: Martin Morse, A. Halford, Shaina Mote
Sarah Michelson drawings: Charlotte Cullinan
Hair: Jmy and Alice
Text: Richard Maxwell
Sound Design and sourcing: Sarah Michelson and James Lo
Interns: Kira Alker and Buck Wanner
Whitney Biennial performance assistant: Greta Hartenstein
Production manager: Bob Bellerue
Right hand: Zack Tinkelman
Construction team: Zack tinkelman, Bob Bellerue, Rory Mulholland, Jorg Jakoby, F.P. Boue
Producing director: Barbara Bryan
Administrative associate: Julia Alexander

Commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, for the 2012 Whitney Biennial

2012