Redactions (2022)
Redactions is an ambivalent autobiography—a chorus of psyches, a year-long look out the window. It has holes for other voices. Layered on a gestural movement language — sculptural, psychological, and intimate — are bits of narrative about sex in an airplane bathroom, Fred Moten’s take on abstraction, live-streamed uprisings and insurrections, hand washing, and the evening stars converging in winter.
The Redactions are text drawings that follow formal constraints for their creation, akin to those Levine uses while choreographing dances. Alongside the Redactions, she creates Utterances, phrases of language-like movement. These are brought together as spoken text and movement in performance.
Redactions was commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and premiered June 8-11, 2002
Created by Abigail Levine. Performed by Martita Abril, Anna Azrieli, Julian Barnett, Abigail Levine, and Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal. Music by Paula Matthusen. Lighting by Madeline Best. Costumes / Design by Magdalena Jarkowiec.
A limited edition print portfolio accompanies the performances, designed by Michale Reardon with context essay by writer Claudia La Rocco, published by The Chocolate Factory with support from Fridman Gallery. Redactions received additional development support from the MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Los Angeles Performance Practice, and Human Resources, LA.
Development performances and publications
Redactions and Utterances in Fridman Gallery’s A Stranger’s Soul (2021)
Redactions in La Vague Journal (2020)
Redaction No. 9: A Fragile Thing in Imagined Theaters (2019)
Redactions creative residency at The Chocolate Factory Theater (2019)
Redactions at Los Angeles Performance Practice D&R Residency (2019)