Robert Harding
Seven Poles

Robert Harding
Bruce Cleveland
Anne Cleveland
Gigi Harding
T.J.
Sue Rich

Seven Poles was performed nightly for two weeks, beginning on New Year’s Eve, 1972-73. “Nostalgia, Sea, Epiphany, Stone, Conjunction, Musical, and Light” were all aspects of Seven Poles. I created these pieces especially for 112 Greene Street during the Autumn of 1972. As the titles suggest, the works were elusive, poetic, mythic, and difficult. They were dance-theatre and media pieces employing video and sound tracks.

The dancers, including myself, wore masks and costumes that had created for these works and an earlier piece called Network. We created musical instruments by stretching piano wires across the gallery and made combinations of wooden frames and piano wire that were strange, antique-looking, sculptural instruments. The dancers played the instruments often during the performances. We used the whole gallery, sometimes covering the floor with black polyethylene sheets. used a lot of cheesecloth and black net cloth.

The atmosphere was mystical-quasi-religious-mysterious. One aim was to relate to the audience, and as a result devised special dance movements using ropes, mirrors, and other props to pull the theatre space and the audience space together. [Robert Harding]

Excerpted from Brentano, R., & Savitt, M. (1981). 112 Workshop, 112 Greene Street: History, artists & artworks. New York: New York University Press.