Multimedia sensation: New York's Park Avenue Armory stages Tree of Codes

Wayne McGregor has produced a stage version of Jonathan Safran Foer's 2010 novel Tree of Codes, choreographed in creative partnership with Olafur Eliasson, who came up with a visual concept, and Jamie xx, who composed the music. Over the course of a weeklong run, the Park Avenue Armory in New York staged the 90-minute performance that resulted from this coming-together of three people at the top of their artistic fields. Like the book that inspired it, Tree of Codes, as a performance, defies easy category – part dance, part art installation, and part music event.

Wayne McGregor, Olafur Eliasson, and Jamie xx combine creative forces to tackle multi-media sensation Tree of Codes at the Park Avenue Armory, New York

(Image credit: Stephanie Berger)

By John Gendall

published 24 September 2015

in Features

When American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer published Tree of Codes, in 2010, it stumped critics. The publication – part book, part sculpture, part poetry – saw Foer write a story not by putting words to paper, but by removing words from another text: Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles. The result is a paperback rife with excisions, what choreographer Wayne McGregor calls ‘a beautiful architectural object’.

After reading the book, McGregor became determined to produce this architectural object as a performance, so he choreographed it in creative partnership with Olafur Eliasson, who came up with a visual concept, and Jamie xx, who composed the music. Over the course of a weeklong run, the Park Avenue Armory in New York staged the 90-minute performance that resulted from this coming-together of three people at the top of their artistic fields. Like the book that inspired it, Tree of Codes, as a performance, defies easy category – part dance, part art installation, and part music event.

Eliasson’s set, positioned at the centre of the Armory’s vast drill hall, produces a colourful and kinetic stage. A mirrored backdrop folds into itself, creating a kaleidoscopic effect, while a scrim that divides the stage is both reflective and transparent, allowing dancers on each side of it to be reflected in different ways. In the prismatic lighting and stage colours, audience members will recognise Eliasson’s influence – also on display with an installation before the performance starts that projects the silhouettes of passersby as repeated shadows tinted with the full colour spectrum.

In what has become an ambitiously versatile arts venue, the Armory will round out its 2015 season with an installation by Laurie Anderson and a performance by Marina Abramović with pianist Igor Levit. Throughout it all, work continues on restoring the 19th century building, under the design direction of Herzog & de Meuron.

tree of code performance with men dressed in blue — The book which the performance is based on, by Jonathon Safran Foer, is constructed from the words of another text – Bruno Schulz’s *The Street of Crocodiles* – to create a hybrid piece that is part novel, part sculpture and part poetry

tree of code performance with a man and a woman dressed in black — The backdrop is an overlapped mirror, creating a kaleidoscopic effect which places the performers in a surreal dance with themselves

tree of code performance with people dressed in white — With the combined efforts of these three artistic heavyweights, the performance begins to mirror the book, becoming a fragmented work that is part dance, part art installation, and part music event

tree of code performance with people dressed in beige — In the prismatic lighting and stage colours, audience members will recognise Eliasson’s influence

tree of code performance with a woman dressed in white and red — Eliasson’s touch was also on display with a pre-performance installation that projects the silhouettes of passersby as repeated shadows tinted with the full colour spectrum

INFORMATION

Photography: Stephanie Berger

ADDRESS

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
New York City, NY 10065

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