Ninotchka bennahum biography of william

UCSB’s AD&A (Art, Design & Architecture) Museum’s current major exhibition extends its attention yet further afield from art proper in the form of Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance, 1900-1955.

What might seem, at least on paper, as something of a non sequitur — dance being a medium all about motion and bodily kinetics in real time, confined to the walls of a museum space — springs surprisingly to life in this flexible art space.

As manifested by curator Ninotchka Bennahum, the show makes liberal use of archival photography, explanatory historical texts, occasional costumes, and the all-important source of filmed dance sequences through the decades.

The exhibition tells of a story in motion on multiple fronts as well as marginal zones creeping toward the centers of attention in the dance world.

Walking through the galleries becomes a polyrhythmic pageant from many sources beyond the white culture, and delivers chore