Year: 2025
Location: New York, NY
Lamentation: Dancing the Archive ACM Paper
Lamentation: Dancing the Archive merges Martha Graham’s iconic choreography with interactive technology. This participatory installation invites audiences to engage with an archival 3D film of Lamentation in two ways: by activating the installation themselves—dancing alongside the historic footage—and by using their own gestures to manipulate it in real time. This immersive interaction allows participants to physically experience Graham’s choreography, bridging past and present through movement.
Audiences can also engage with a performance version of the installation, where an improvisatory piece featuring Martha Graham Principal Dancer Xin Ying, accompanied by live music, brings the archival material to life, further deepening the connection between history and the present moment.
Conceived by Xin Ying
Co-created by Xin Ying, Alan Winslow, Katherine Helen Fisher, and Kate Ladenheim
Music by Myles Avery
Motion Graphics by Shimmy Boyle
Technical Consulting by Shimmy Boyle and Mingyong Cheng
Funding:
Support for this work was provided by The Martha Graham Dance Company and a Google
Artists + Machine Intelligence Faculty Research Award. Additional support was provided by
Evercoast, New York University, the Barnard Movement Lab, UCLA Department of World
Arts and Cultures/Dance and Standard Vision Studios
