Artists: Jake Borndal, Sanford Biggers, caraballo-farman, Maureen
Connor, Ben Coonley, Daily Dancer, Kan Xua, Kaoru Katayama, Mike
Kelley, Rodney McMillian,Trine Lise Nedreaas, Christodoulos Panayiotou,
Laura Parnes, Barbara Pollack, Ron Rocheleau’s ConcreteTV, Valeska
Soares, Michael Smith, Jennifer Sullivan, William Wegman, Wild Record
Collection, and Michael Zansky

Everybody Dance Now takes its title from the opening line
of the 1990 C&C Music Factory song. This exhibition, curated by
Kathleen Goncharov, showcases work by an international cast of
contemporary artists as well as excerpts from popular culture venues
such as public access television, You Tube, and Google Video. The show
celebrates the universal human urge to move to the beat (although dogs,
frogs, bears, ponies, ghosts, and alligators sometimes act as
surrogates for people). The title of the exhibition is literal…everyone
dances when all these characters move to the groove and show off their
collective talent (or lack there of).

Although many of the works in the exhibition are amusing, they often
have a dark humor and address such serious issues as gender and racial
stereotypes, war, violence, media manipulation, globalization, and
cultural conflict. Other videos deal with more personal matters that
concern us all, such as aging, mortality, the dilemmas of adolescence,
and the sexual insecurities that follow us through life.

Dog Duet, by video pioneer William Wegman, features the artist’s famous weimaraners who perform in perfect synch. Trine Lise Nedreaas’ poetic
work is a life size projection that depicts an 87 year-old man dancing
the tango with an invisible partner in an abandoned ballroom. Valeska Soares’ subject
is similar but her dancers perform with imaginary partners on a
mirrored floor in a Brazilian nightclub designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

Performance artist Michael Smith’s character “Mike” is a
parody of the “everyman” who craves social acceptance but like most of
us ultimately ends up a loser. Smith contributes excerpts of his
dancing alter ego from videos he’s made over the past twenty-five
years. Another everyman, an unabashed nerd, the Daily Dancer, who posts on the Internet, trips over his vacuum cleaner while dancing to Aretha Franklin’s Respect. TV personality Stephen Colbert dances to the hymn King of Glory in an Internet clip and another found video teaches black people how to “dance like a white guy.”

Mike Kelley’s contributes two short videos from his Day is Done project in which adults reenact the “extracurricular” activities depicted in photographs from old high school yearbooks. Laura Parnes and Jennifer Sullivan also look at adolescents, in particular participants in amateur talent shows. Rodney McMillian dances to a Prince song in a disturbing blue mask and Sanford Biggers makes the connection between Hip Hop and Kung Fu. Maureen Connor’s video installation recalls 1950s insecurities and gender stereotypes in a children’s dance class. Barbara Pollack collaborates
with her 18 year old son on a two-channel video where he and his
friends dance in a simulated mosh pit and perform a tableaux of an
infamous photograph from Abu Ghraib. Michael Zansky also deals
with failed US policies and asks whether we are dancing our way back
into the primordial slime led by Godzilla, who bears a striking
resemblance to Rona
ld Reagan.

Kaoru Katayama, a Japanese artist living in Spain explores
cultural confusion in a video of traditional dancers from Salamanca who
try to use their native steps while dancing to techno music. Christodoulos Panayiotou’s video
is documentation of Slow Dance Marathon, a performance in which total
strangers slow dance over a twenty-four hour period to sentimental pop
love songs. Kan Xua has a hilarious and surprising take on Chinese revolutionary opera and caraballo-farman’s floor projection is a ballet of vibrators. Ben Coonley’s mechanical ponies talk and do The Pony to a Chubby Checker song as well as teach themselves the Texas two-step.

Continuing with the animal theme, the collaborators responsible for Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Wild Record Collection feature
their toy polar bear Snuffles and his stuffed animal friends who dance
to cuts from their collection of thousands of LPs. Another MNN
favorite, Ron Rocheleau’s Concrete TV, features brilliantly edited clips of strip club dancers, car crashes and brief scenes from popular movies. Jake Borndal creates a special TV and Internet lounge for viewing these programs and found footage.

Everybody Dance Now presents work that ranges from the
ridiculous to the sublime; some are profound and others are downright
silly, but they all reflect the human condition through the urge to
dance.

Artists in the exhibition include Jake Borndal, Sanford Biggers,
caraballo-farman, Maureen Connor, Ben Coonley, Daily Dancer, Kan Xua,
Kaoru Katayama, Mike Kelley, Rodney McMillian, Trine Lise Nedreaas,
Christodoulos Panayiotou, Nam June Paik, Laura Parnes, Barbara Pollack,
Ron Rocheleau’s Concrete TV, Valeska Soares, Michael Smith, Jennifer
Sullivan, William Wegman, The Wild Record Collection, and Michael
Zansky.
***

Kathleen Goncharov is an independent curator and critic. She has served
as Adjunct Curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, US
Commissioner to the 50th Venice Biennale, Public Art Curator at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Curator of the Collection at
The New School. She lives and works in New York City.

This exhibition is presented by The EFA Gallery, a program of the
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. With additional support from The
Milton and Sally Avery Foundation, The Helen Keeler Burke Charitable
Foundation, Peter C. Gould, Materials for the Arts, and Carnegie
Corporation Inc.

The EFA Gallery is a curatorial project space. Through the gallery, The
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts supports the creative work of
independent curators. Curators build the framework in which we
understand artists and the art they make. At their best, they redefine
how we look at culture. The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts believes
in the essential importance of art in a civil society. The value of the
artist’s creative spirit is not limited by age, race, nationality or
acceptance by others.