Robert Wilson got up to speak. Then, was silent. We heard the clinking of silverware. Then, did not. Bob remained still. There was more rustling in the room. Then less. Finally, finally, Bob’s voice rang out:
“Thank you. And thank you for being. And thank you more for this glorious evening. Thank you for the light. Thank you for this food on our tables. Thank you for the rock and the clock, the river and the trees. Tonight we’re gonna honor my friend Lucinda Childs.
“I’ll tell you a little secret. The reason I’ve worked and the reason we work as artists is to say: what is it? … The clock. The river. And the trees. Thank you for being here. Our ancestors. Thank you Charles and thank you Van Gogh. Thank you Van Cleef & Arpels for supporting this evening.
“And thank all of you for being.”
Where else but at The Watermill Center’s Annual Summer Benefit would you hear this kind of benefit remarks? And who else but Robert Wilson understands that you can hear more carefully when you’re quiet, pay more attention to the sound that follows.
Wilson is an internationally recognized pioneer who reimagined look, light, timing and space in theater and opera. A storied collaborator with a totally unique vision. The stunning beauty of his tableau’s are unmistakable. His movement: less is more. His timing: more is more.
Einstein on the Beach, his 1976 breakout opera collaboration with Philip Glass featuring Lucinda Childs, was five hours of non-narrative recurrent imagery where audiences wandered in and out. Other productions have ranged from seven hours to seven days.
Wilson also is a champion of others, from the two boys he has adopted and fostered (one deaf, one on the spectrum) to other artists. That includes those who come to Watermill’s residency program yearly, and perform across wooded paths and open courtyards at its summer party.
Wilson brought Lucinda Childs into his orbit and mainstream recognition 50 years ago when he invited her, on a whim, to perform in Einstein. She was honored this evening.
The 2024 benefit theme, A Laboratory: 100 Years of Experimentation, celebrated the continuum from the Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation Center’s history. “It was an experiment building for scientists and telecommunications,” Wilson told me. “And it’s still a building for exploration and for asking questions. The responsibility’s for us to say what is it and not what something is. So, we’re still evolving with the same spirit that the scientists started 100 years ago.”
He is present, but he downplays his mentoring role. “Our school gives artists the space,” he told me. “Water Mill, the studio, is about being in nature. This is fantastic to have as a studio, very different from what I had in Manhattan. This is a studio of light, space and trees.”
The evening benefited Watermill’s International Summer Program (helmed by Artistic Director Charles Chemin, to whom Wilson referred in his opening remarks) and year-round Artist Residency Program. It supports the work of over 120 artists from more than 35 countries annually, as well as educational programming, giving over 1,000 local children the chance to engage in hands-on workshops with arts professionals. The Van Cleef & Arpels Partnership will support all dance programming at Watermill for the year as well as a new dance fellowship that will launch in 2025.
Notable Guests Included: Solange Knowles (Musician), Mykki Blanco (Musician), Peter Marino (Architect), Maxwell Osborne (Fashion Designer), Gideon Appah (Artist), Liz Magic Laser (Artist), Patia Borja (Influencer), Lizzi Bougatsos and Sadie Laska (Musicians), Bianca & Sierra Casady, CocoRosie (Musicians), Helga Davis (Multidisciplinary Artist), Vija Celmins (Artist), Bob Colacello (Author), Stella Bugbee (Styles Editor, New York Times), Fiona Alison Duncan (Author), Irina Kro Eicke (Model), Ekene Ijeoma (Artist), Helen King (President & CEO at Van Cleef & Arpels, Americas), Serge Laurent (Director of Dance and Culture Program, Van Cleef & Arpels), Alexandra Munroe (Curator and Author), Kelly Behun (Interior Designer), Carlos Soto (Theater Maker and Designer), Scott Schwartz (Bay Street Theater’s Artistic Director), Gardy St. Fleur (Art Advisor), Stefano Tonchi (Journalist and Curator), Diya Vij (Curator, Creative Time), Kendall Werts (Founder, The Jeffries), Bonnie Comley and Stewart Lane (Broadway producers and BroadwayHD Founders), among others.
In the ’60s, Childs modeled to support her work as an avant-garde choreographer and dancer, so experimental, she often performed for an audience of loft dwellers looking out their windows. In 1973, she formed her own company. Three years later, she was featured in Einstein on the Beach.
“I had heard of Lucinda,” Bob told me. “Then, she had sort of disappeared in the end of the ’60s. A few years later, I met her by accident. I saw this gorgeous woman, so I introduced myself. She said she was Lucinda Childs. At that time I was just beginning to talk to Phil about making an opera together, Einstein on the Beach. I said very spontaneously. “Oh, you should be in Einstein.”
Like Wilson, Childs also utilizes repetition, patterns and slight movements.
“We think alike about time and space so we can work sort of in shorthand,” Wilson agreed. “We seem to be on the same wavelength and understand each other without having to talk so much about it. It’s a generational work. I understand these patterns of the dance. They’re all classical formal patterns: circles, diagonal lines, straight lines, very strict classical patterns of geometry. My work is different, but I think the same way.”
“I performed as a soloist with Sheryl Sutton on Einstein,” Childs told me, “working with text and movement for the opera.”
She was so unconventional, even Wilson made her more mainstream. “The aesthetic of the minimalist movement is very strongly part of my choreography,” she continued. “I was working mostly with an experimental group in alternative spaces and here was Bob in a theater. It was quite a big step to move into. But his aesthetic was so strong that it is not diminished by a traditional theater setting. I admire this so much about him. It’s been amazing working with him all these years.”
She was watching a performance of one of her works. A solo dancer — Ruth Childs — moved across the stage. “That’s my niece,” Lucinda said. It must be gratifying to have a next gen following literally in her footsteps. “I’m very proud of her,” she replied. “She studied a lot of ballet and trained in Geneva. We’ve been working together for ten years.”
And the “Clock and the Rock” Wilson referenced? We asked Broadway producer and streaming service Broadway HD founder Bonnie Comley — who does it all with husband Stewart Lane. Year after year the Lanes’ kids participate in Watermill productions. Year after year, I ask Bonnie what things mean. This year, she explained the centerpiece installation “Alicja Kwade’s The Void Of The Moment In Motion. “It’s inspired by French physicist Léon Foucault,” she told me.
“A large clock swinging from a construction crane high above the visitors’ heads symbolizes how time and the world’s movement are connected. It reflects the human desire to measure and control time to better understand and manage our reality. But of course, the reality is that we have no control over time, we can only watch it swing by.”
Ah yes, the Wilson preoccupation with time. The astro physicists I watch on YouTube late at night are also beginning to postulate time might be more fluid than we thought.
But, before I got back to YouTube tutorials, it was time for dessert. By the clock and the rock. Thank you Robert Wilson for being.
