Four people perform an expressive dance. One person in red supports another, who leans back dramatically, while two others, in striped and black shirts, interact closely. The background is dark, emphasizing their poses.

Prep School: Long Run

In addition to being a world-renowned choreographer, Tere O’Connor is also a teacher: he is the Center for Advanced Studies Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Learn more about his company, Tere O’Connor Dance; his teaching; and more about his recent projects, including a behind-the-scenes blog written by dance scholar Jenn Joy.

Long Run (2017) pushes the emotional content of O’Connor’s movement to new physical extremes, allowing time-based elements like polyrhythms, velocity and duration to become major forces in the work, overtaking the eight performers as they struggle to bring their bodies into a state of calm.

RELATED EVENTS
  • Fri Oct 12 – Sat Oct 13, 2018

Tere O’Connor Dance: Long Run

  • Dance
Learn More
indefinite article

Rashaun Mitchell on Tere O’Connor

As I write this, my friend and mentor Tere O’Connor is turning 60 years old. He’s had a long run in dance and his new piece is aptly named. Because of his sustained prolific output I was able to see Long Run at Bard College in 2017 with the luminous memory shards of his previous works floating in the back of my mind. This new piece extends Tere’s epic narrative like a body generating another new limb. Actions appear and disappear, imaginatively refashioning themselves as persistent memories or future wishes.  Is this work autobiographical? Tere would almost certainly reject this reading. Too neat. Too obvious.

Rashaun Mitchell on Tere O’Connor(opens in a new tab)
A man with curly dark hair, glasses, and a goatee, wearing a black shirt, poses against a plain teal background.

OFFICE HOURS

Tere O’Connor & Patricia Beaman

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Hot Off the Presses

‘We Have to Skype’: A Two-Choreographer Support System

“I play like Stravinsky’s cat jumping on the piano. [Laughs] It worried me a little bit, but I’m kind of at a point where no one’s going to kick me out.”

The New York Times | Oct. 9, 2018(opens in a new tab)

EXTRA CREDIT


There is a concurrently running, but unrelated, show at the Museum of Modern Art that is also titled The Long Run [Nov 11, 2017-Nov 4, 2018]. It takes up some of the concerns O’Connor expresses in Long Run, and through his dense decades of work.

Innovation in art is often characterized as a singular event—a bolt of lightning that strikes once and forever changes what follows. The Long Run provides an alternate view: by chronicling the continued experimentation of artists long after their breakthrough moments, it suggests that invention results from sustained critical thinking, persistent observation, and countless hours in the studio.

Artists include Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Melvin Edwards, Gego, Philip Guston, David Hammons, Joan Jonas, Ellsworth Kelly, Helen Levitt, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Stella, and others.