Save the Last Dance

Growing up in the 70s, Rainer Judd, the daughter of the late artist Donald Judd, recalls large communal dinners at the family home in Manhattan’s Soho. Last weekend, she brought back that communal spirit in the landmarked space that was also her father’s studio and is the current site of the Judd Foundation, with a series of performances choreographed by the performance artist Trisha Brown. “In Plain Site, 101 Spring Street, New York” kicked off on the building’s ground floor with “Accumulation (Early Works, 1974),” which featured a single dancer grooving to the Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band.” She moved slowly, grinning and occasionally wagging her thumbs, hitchhiking to nowhere while, outside on the street, pedestrians peered curiously through the large windows. On the second floor, two male performers dressed in fashionable sweats mirrored each other’s moves, to soothing piano and sax. And up on the top floor, a dancer draped in sheer white fabric, gyrated alone in Judd’s former bedroom before a massive Dan Flavin sculpture. The evening sun streamed in through the windows; she moved as if having a silent dialogue with the art in the room.