Lucinda Childs

Lucinda Childs began her career as a choreographer in the 1960s at the Judson Dance Theater. She founded her own company in 1973 and, three years later, took part in the creation of the opera Einstein on the Beach alongside Philip Glass and Robert Wilson. The works that followed bear the mark of numerous collaborations, notably with Robert Wilson for I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating (1977), with Philip Glass and Sol LeWitt for Dance (1979), and with John Adams and Frank Gehry for Available Light (1983).

Her work is notably rooted in contemporary music, and she has created pieces based on works by Ligeti (Rhythm Plus, 1991), Górecki (Concerto, 1993), and Roger Reynolds (On the Balance of Things, 1998). Alongside creations for her own company, she has also produced works for other ensembles, including the Martha Graham Dance Company (Histoire, 1999), the Bayerisches Staatsballett (Handel/Corelli, 2001), the Ballet National de Marseille (Tempo Vicino, 2009), and the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon (Grande fugue, 2016).

More recently, Lucinda Childs has been engaged in a process of re-staging several of her works, including Dance for the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon, Available Light with her company, as well as several programmes of shorter pieces with her niece Ruth Childs. The Festival d’Automne has accompanied her work since its beginnings, notably with a Portrait dedicated to her in 2016. She created BACH 6 SOLO with Robert Wilson and Jennifer Koh at the opening of the 50th edition of the Festival d’Automne at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière (2021).