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5 Ann Carlson Ann Carlson has been attracted to unusual sites from her earliest efforts in the performance world. After her university experiences in the West and then performing with Meredith Monk in New York in the 1980s, Carlson went on to create site-specific performances from the most intimate to the grandest of scales. Borrowing from the disciplines of choreography, performance, theater, public and conceptual art, Carlson’s work is projectbased and often organized within a series format. Carlson has received more than 30 commissions and numerous awards for her artistic work, including a 2009 USA Artists Fellowship, a 2008 American Masterpiece award, a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a 1995 Alpert Award in the Arts, and a three-year choreographic fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Kloetzel interviewed Carlson on July 1, 2005, at a coffeehouse in New York City. An Interview with Ann Carlson MK: What do you think of the term site-specific? AC: People laugh at me, but I used to say that everything is site work. You know, from a young age, I started feeling like whether I was working in a theater or whether I was working outside a theater, they’re both really the same. But I also used to be a little annoyed by the term site work because it seemed to privilege concert stage–based work. Actually, I think the issue is really that the term is a bit watered down at this point—domesticated, easily dismissed. So I just like to call it all work. MK: Categorization can be problematic on so many levels. AC: Yes, but I do love the possibility in site-specific work, or site-sensitive work, or site-responsive—however it’s named—that people will happen upon an event or a public performance work. I love the opportunity for passersby to “stumble” upon something they didn’t expect. In work inside a theater, 105 An Interview/Thumbprint people are deliberate about attending and they are familiar with their role as spectators. I enjoy the potential to upend all of that. In the last four years or so, or at least since Geyser Land, I’ve only made one piece in the theater; everything else has been sited in one way or another. I guess I’ve become almost pathological about being in a theater. I feel held hostage most of the time. So, more and more, site work has become my practice. I’d like to just say that’s where my work is now; it’s no longer “sited” in the theatre. For most of my work life, and I know a lot of artists feel this way, it’s the job of others to categorize the work you do. So I just try and let it go. MK: It’s intriguing to watch the waxing and waning of site work since the 1960s and 1970s. Coming back to New York these days, I’m always amazed at how many artists who were dedicated to the theater space are branching into site work. AC: Well, I think that could be due to issues of economics and access. You mentioned the 1960s and 1970s; I’d say initially there were economic issues, a refusal of the marketplace. But it was also the issue of access for the spectator . There’s the potential for a sort of anarchy in site work that was attractive to people then (and now), as well as the benefit of working outside the usual presenter context. MK: What would you consider your first site work? AC: Hmmm. I guess I would say one of my first site works would be the Real People series, the series of performance works made with and for people gathered together by profession—lawyers, security officers, the Geyser Land poker players, etc. These works are based around people’s passions, why they do what they do, and what gestures and movements define and express those passions and activities. The series examines stereotypes and looks for the vulnerability and the humanity embedded in people’s work and identity. I did a piece with lawyers and fly fishermen, and then went on to work with so many different kinds of people—nuns, teachers, physicians, etc. MK: Was the Real People series also performed in the performers’ actual workplaces? AC: Yes, the fly fishermen performed on the lake, the corporate executives in the office, etc. You see, we would...

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