FILLING STATION

A newly commissioned project by Paris, France-based American multidisciplinary artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Filling Station comprises three dance performances sited across two partner locations, and an exhibition of a new series of paintings, archival materials, audiovisual elements and ephemera by the artist at The Kitchen’s satellite loft space at Westbeth in the West Village.

For this project, Lutz-Kinoy reinterprets the one-act ballet Filling Station originally staged by the short-lived troupe Ballet Caravan (1936-1940)—which grew out of American Ballet, co-founded by Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine and Edward Warburg—as part of a presentation titled A Sunday in Town, which debuted in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 6, 1938. The original performance featured music by composer Virgil Thomson, choreography by Lew Christensen (known for his direction of the San Francisco Ballet from 1952 to 1984), and set and costumes by artist Paul Cadmus. This ballet is credited as the first ballet directed by an American choreographer, danced by an American company, and based on an American theme, with music and designs by American artists. A response to—and refusal of—a Eurocentric canon of classical ballet, this work brought to the fore a group of collaborators that shone light on questions of American industry, capital, class, and gender roles. It also put new language to an idea of the “American pastoral,” a renegotiation of city and country in a period where much of the material of American suburbanism was in the process of being built, deeply defined by the mobility of Americans via automobiles.

Lutz-Kinoy’s restaging considers this 1938 work of American dance through a contemporary lens, creating a dynamic, queered space for reflection on race, class, and gender. The multi-site presentation in New York brings together a culmination of research begun in 2020 with collaborators in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Archival elements drawn from Lutz-Kinoy’s research are on display as a document of three years of discovery, including reproductions of Paul Cadmus’s drawings and photographs by photographers George Platt Lynes and Fred Melton, alongside new photography by artist Mary Manning. Central to the exhibition is a series of immersive paintings by Lutz-Kinoy, inspired by Walker Evans’s photographs and Cadmus’s historic sets for the original Filling Station ballet. The artist’s canvases here utilized as set design for the rehearsal process merge into new architectures and relationships between the technical mechanics of the originating performance and its contemporary representation.

Lutz-Kinoy’s Filling Station features new choreography Niall Jones (lead choreographer) and Raymond Pinto (consulting choreographer); a new music score made by James Ferraro; a set design by Lutz-Kinoy; and costumes by Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta of fashion label Eckhaus Latta. The ensemble of dancers includes Bria Bacon, Ayano Elson, Maxfield Haynes, Niall Jones, Kris Lee, Niala, and Mina Nishimura.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy: Filling Station is commissioned by The Kitchen and organized by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator, and Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant, The Kitchen.

The performance at Dia Beacon is co-presented with Dia Art Foundation and organized by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator, The Kitchen, Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant, The Kitchen, and Jordan Carter, Curator, Dia Art Foundation.

Production by David Riley, Production & Exhibitions Manager, and Tassja Walker, Production Supervisor, The Kitchen. Rehearsal and performance videography by Al Foote III.