The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
Performance
Wandering/Warsaw
John Jasperse Projects
28.08.2026 18:00
Location
Exhibition Julie Mehretu. Kairos / Hauntological Variations, Gallery D
Duration
60 minutes
ADMISSION
Included in the price of the exhibition ticket
Wandering/Warsaw is a site-specific performance piece choreographed by John Jasperse (USA) for the exhibition Julie Mehretu: Kairos / Hauntological Variations.
Unfolding in the gallery space, the piece emerged from a shared curiosity between multiple artists: who has the agency to wander, and how can we summon movement across space through the coalescence of visual, choreographic, and sonic imaginaries? At the starting point of this inquiry is the visual and choreographic synergy between artist Julie Mehretu’s and choreographer John Jasperse’s investments in the liberatory potential of abstraction in their work.
In Jasperse’s choreography, the whole body becomes a device for sensing. Paintings by Julie Mehretu are not just a backdrop for performers’ actions—they act as the latter’s partners, suggesting to dancers the rhythms, directions, and dynamics for their movement. Featuring six dancers and two composers (one live), the piece brings our attention all the more to the energetic, political, sensual, layered surfaces of Mehretu’s work.
How do choreo-sonic landscapes enliven her paintings? And how, in turn, do her works activate dancers’ and musicians’ actions? Transposed and refigured for Warsaw, the project casts human bodies in ever-changing roles—of the brush, as it paints; the sense, as it sees, hears, or feels; the mourner, as they wail; the ghost, as it haunts; the guide, as they show others the way; the lover, as they caress and are caressed; the scream, as it is let out after it has been held; or the wanderer, as they go on.
“When does the dancing body here function as paintbrush, feeler, mourner, activator, silence, healer, soldier, ghost, chaos, sound, child, sketch, griot, lover, color, guide, rhythm, scream, seducer, frenzy, or wanderer? And how will sound transport us temporally, to yesteryears, afrofutures, and queer utopias? The audience, also a collective of internal and external wanderers, will live in this moment with us,” says says producer and dramturg, Ariel Osterweis.
Photo by Whitney Browne
Photo by Whitney Browne
Photo by Whitney Browne
Photo by Whitney Browne
Featuring works by Julie Mehretu
Choreography by John Jasperse Projects
Dramaturgy & Production by Ariel Osterweis / Body Shop Performance Projects
Dancers: Maria Fleischman, Catherine Kirk, Cynthia Koppe, Andrea Soto, Jace Weyant, Zo Williams
Music by Hahn Rowe (live) and Will Johnson (recorded)
MSN’s performance programming is curated by Magdalena Komornicka
Produced at MSN by Katarzyna Szybińska
The project Wandering/Warsaw by John Jasperse Projects was produced with support from the Cultural Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, the James E. Robison Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the Kyle J. Mulroney Foundation. Artistic residency that allowed to pursue the project was provided by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Initial support for Wandering (first performed at MGG, NYC) was provided by Marian Goodman Gallery and Julie Mehretu Studio.