Maria Hassabi: And there’s also gravity 

Production | Exhibition Grant

Maria Hassabi will produce a site-specific, live, choreographic installation that encourages viewers to process the composition of bodies, costume patterns, and supporting surfaces as a cohesive yet incrementally shifting image. Sited in the foyer of the Cleveland Museum of Art, three dancers installed at different points will perform an identical score of detailed choreography. Composed of long pauses and decelerated movements, the one and a half hour durational performance is designed to repeat on a loop for several hours a day and is punctuated by a soundtrack composed by sound designer Stavros Gasparatos. Contrasting the supremely unmonumental spectacle of soft bodies moving at slow speeds with the architecture of the public plaza, Hassabi’s project explores the passage of time. Her performers decelerate movement, carving the space around them like glaciers rearrange geography and holding tension or slackening a gesture simply through stasis.