Screen Projects: Mary Ellen Strom And Ann Carlson

November 14, 2016–January 1, 2017

UB CFA Gallery

Mary Ellen Strom, Ann Carlson

Based on a live performance from 1986 choreographed by Ann Carlson, Sloss, Kerr, Rosenberg & Moore features four lawyers performing a movement and vocal score that references their daily work. Standing with their backs to one another in a tight elevator corridor, the four lawyers bend, stretch, reach, point, and shout throughout the four-and-a-half-minute scene. The rhythmic sequences illustrate aspects of litigation and the pressures of working in the juridical system. Creating almost a 21st-century folk dance, this video employs tactics of spectacle and humor, while providing a reflection on a practice that dates back to the fourth century.