Reunion, 2010

Group Exhibition

Performance Art

In 1968, a Festival of Art and Technology titled Sightsoundsystems was directed by Udo Kasemets and jointly presented by the Isaacs Gallery and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. The festival was launched with a collaborative performance titled Reunion held at the Ryerson Theatre on the evening of Tuesday 5 March and featuring John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Teeny Duchamp, with electronic music by David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, David Tudor, and Lowell Cross. In the performance, games of chess determined the form and acoustical ambience of the event. A sound-distributing chessboard designed and built by Lowell Cross created sound in response to the various moves made by the players (a series of photoelectric cells underneath each square of the chessboard were used as triggers). Except for a brief curtain call in Buffalo, NY five days later, Duchamp made his last public stage appearance in Reunion on the Ryerson Theatre stage.

Reunion 2010 invites a number of local and international participants influenced by the twin legacies of Cage and Duchamp to create a new 12-hour performance for the same stage. The event celebrates this historic artistic convergence that is both a local piece of Toronto lore as well as an art historical event of international consequence.

Suitable for all ages