In January, Guild Hall announced a multi-week 2026 residency in collaboration with Gibney Company, a world-class contemporary dance company that commissions and performs works by renowned choreographers. The residency supports an ongoing creative exchange and the development of new work.
Gibney, which is based in New York City, also launched in January a five-year partnership with Lucinda Childs, a defining force in American postmodern dance, naming her its resident choreographer.
Those connections will begin to emerge publicly on Saturday at 7 p.m. with “In Process: Gibney Company and Lucinda Childs,” a presentation at Guild Hall of excepts from a newly commissioned work ahead of its world premiere in January 2027. The performance will be followed by a conversation with Childs and members of the Gibney Company, offering insight into the residency, their collaborative process, and the development of the work leading up to its premiere.
Childs’s compositions are known for their minimalistic movements and complex transitions. Through her use of patterns, repetition, dialect, and technology, she has created a unique style of choreography that embraces experimentation.
She began her career at the Judson Dance Theater in New York in 1963. Though short-lived, that collective became a force in contemporary dance. In addition to such choreographers as Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Deborah Hay, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Judith Dunn, Meredith Monk, and Childs, artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Morris performed with the group. In revolt against modern dance, those choreographers used pedestrian movements, then known as “task performance,” such as walking, running, and skipping.
Since forming her dance company in 1973, Childs has created over 50 works, both solo and ensemble. She has received the Dance Magazine Award, the Golden Lion Award from the Venice Biennale, and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival award for lifetime achievement. In 1976 she was featured in the Robert Wilson and Philip Glass avant-garde Opera “Einstein on the Beach,” for which she won an Obie Award.
Since 1981, Childs has choreographed over 30 works for important ballet companies and directed and choreographed a number of contemporary and 18th-century Operas for the Los Angeles Opéra and La Monnaie in Brussels, among others. She directed and choreographed Glass’s “Akhnaten” for Nice Opera Côte d’Azur in 2021.
Gibney Company, led by Gina Gibney, its artistic director, and Gilbert T. Small II, its company director, commissions and performs works that explore the intersection of rigorous physicality and humanistic storytelling. As leader of the organization, Gibney has transformed a single studio into one of New York City’s most expansive and impactful arts organizations.
Tickets for the performance are $45.
