Lee Mingwei and Bill T. Jones: OUR LABYRINTH
Lee Mingwei and Bill T. Jones: OUR LABYRINTH
This unique, site-specific iteration of Taiwanese-American artist Lee Mingwei's performance work OUR LABYRINTH stands as a meditation on this moment of instability and profound change.
FREE
Met Museum online
September 30, 2020 | 12:00 pm
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Performance details

Dancers
Sara Mearns
Linda LaBeija
DeAngelo Blanchard
Vocalist
Alicia Hall Moran

Event details

Watch live on the Met's YouTube channel. No login is required.

Presented by

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY

About The Performance

Join MetLiveArts, in partnership with New York Live Arts, for a unique, site-specific iteration of Taiwanese-American artist Lee Mingwei’s durational performance work OUR LABYRINTH. Originally performed at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Centre Pompidou, Lee has invited legendary American dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones to collaborate on a special version specifically for New York City and The Met as a meditation on this moment of instability and profound change.

OUR LABYRINTH is a live performance for an online audience, streamed over three weeks from three Met galleries while the Museum is closed. Each performance features a different cast member, a single dancer who uses a stylized broom to sweep a mound of rice along a labyrinthine path of their choosing. Performing this profoundly spiritual task, the dancer may encounter obstacles along the way but continues to navigate silently and mindfully. Lee conceives of this project as a gift from the performers to the viewers, providing a “pure” space both physically and spiritually. Jones expresses his influence on the work, a respectful conversation with Lee across time and space, through the diverse cast of performers representing the spectrum of New York dance and performance, and in the sonic landscape provided by three experimental vocalists and musicians that echo through the galleries.

Image: Our Labyrinth, 2015–present. Ongoing performance installation with rice, costume, and dance. Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.