M.C. Richards, floor plan of John Cage’s Theater Piece No. 1 (1952), drawn for William Fetterman in 1989.
The same five simultaneous but uncoordinated actions, as used in the original performance at Black Mountain College, are performed.
Declared the first Happening and later named Theater Piece No. 1, an unnamed performance took place in August 1952 at Black Mountain College that would become one of the most famous events in the college’s history. The ICA has invited five Boston-based artists to reimagine Theater Piece No. 1 by proposing a series of actions that will take place in the ICA galleries and throughout the museum.
In Theater Piece No. 1 Revisited, Damon Krukowski employs the same five simultaneous but uncoordinated actions used in the original performance at Black Mountain College: prose, poetry, recorded music, live music, and dance.
Damon Krukowski is a musician, publisher, and writer who will be a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University for the 2015–16 academic year.