At a Tribeca Gallery, Dancers and Art Share an Unconventional Stage

From left, Sarah Housepian, Jillian Linkowski, Vivake Khamsingsavath and Amy Saunder move among the works of Mark Handforth, a site-specific installation at Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca

Artist Mark Handforth imagined his colorful, sinuous forms as dancers when he created them for his current installation at the gallery Luhring Augustine in Tribeca. Then, one afternoon last week, real live partners arrived to dance with them. 

The gallery became a stage, and Handforth’s figures the creative inspiration for the five dancers of the Tribeca-based Battery Dance Company who moved among—and were moved by—the sculptural pieces.

Photos by Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib. Music by polarity/1. Dancers: Sarah Housepian, Vivake Khamsingsavath, Jillian Linkowski, Amy Saunder and Razvan Stoian

“I’m loving it,” Handforth said, as he watched the improvised performance unfold around his site-specific installation, “Half-Sleep-City,” for the closed-door filming. “It’s the perfect interaction. I think of these sculptures as dancers anyway, so it’s really taking that dance into reality.” The Battery Dance performers were Sarah Housepian, Vivake Khamsingsavath, Jillian Linkowski, Amy Saunder and Razvan Stoian.

“Since the gallery opened I was in love with the floor and the space,” said Jonathan Hollander, Battery Dance’s founder and artistic director, “and then I saw Mark’s sculpture and I said, ‘This is a set for dance, this is an opportunity for visual arts and dance to interact. This is perfect.’”

Hollander’s dancers agreed, saying that everything about the space, as well the moves of their fellow company members, inspired their impromptu responses. And then there was the recorded electronic music by Polar Levine, also known as polarity/1, that accompanied it. 

“Each of the sculptures gives a lot of information to us as far as texture, shape, length and also the dancers in the space around the work,” said Sarah Housepian. “We all have different narratives when we’re working with it. How we’re feeling, the music, everything plays a role in it.” 

“I’m very much deep in imagination,” added dancer Jillian Linkowski. “Listening, and seeing what the different dancers are doing, what the sculptures are doing, what I’m imagining. There’s a lot going on.”

Luhring Augustine sales assistant Bianca Torres worked with Hollander on turning his idea for the filmed performance into reality. She called the result “very sensual” and a good fit with the “dancing” sculptures that populate the gallery.

“Also,” she added, “it makes you think how rigidly we interact with art. I wish we all felt free to dance around it.” 

“Half-Sleep-City,” by Mark Handforth, is at Luhring Augustine, 17 White St., until July 28.  His public sculpture, “Franklin Street Four,” is on display at Barnett Newman Triangle, White Street between Church Street and 6th Avenue, until November 2023.