The Grand Step Project:

The Grand Step Project was conceived as a site-adaptive work to be performed on grand staircases, all over the world. The 30-minute work consists of Flight, a 15-minute dance performance for 50 dancers, preceded by a 15-minute performance by a 50-member choir or musical ensemble. Inspired by the dynamic tension between the beauty and grandeur of prominent grand staircases—and the casual use a diverse public makes of them on a daily basis—The Grand Step Project reflects the spirit of the contemporary urban environment. The work also functions as a way for local arts presenters to both reach new audiences and help connect different strands of their cultural community, specifically in dance and music.

Why present the Grand Step Project in your community?

The Grand Step Project is a large-scale site-adaptive work that provides presenters with an optimal opportunity to: 1) revitalize public life, 2) draw widespread media attention, 3) reach thousands of new dance audiences from all walks of life, 4) engage up to a 100 regional performing artists in highly publicized public performances, 5) create partnerships with significant cultural and civic institutions in their community, and 6) integrate the presenting organization into the cultural and civic life of its community.

The Grand Step Project: New York City

In June 2004, Stephan Koplowitz and Dancing in the Streets drew widespread press, radio, and television coverage for the 24 free public performances of The Grand Step Project that were presented on six staircases throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx for an estimated audience of 16,000 people. The work was performed in heavily trafficked public spaces where passersby paused in the midst of their daily life and remained riveted by the work—which for many was the first live dance performance they had seen. The project took place over eight days and was repeated three times per day at the following sites: the World Financial Center Winter Garden, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian at the U.S. Customs House, The New York Public Library, The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan; and the Bronx County Building and Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Artist Statement February 9, 2003
Stephan Koplowitz

Background: The Grand Step Project has its roots in another site-specific work: Genesis Canyon, which took place on a grand staircase (in part) found inside the grand entrance hall of London’s Natural History Museum. After my experience of working in that space, upon my return to NYC, I began to take new notice of the grand staircases found all over the city and began to make a “collection” in my mind, thinking that a moveable site work involving these different stairs could make for an interesting work. The idea took shape as a production concept in 2000 and I spent the next four years looking for a producing partner. After several meetings with Aviva Davidson, at Dancing in the Streets, we agreed to move forward together to make this idea a reality. Below is my artistic statement (2003), used as part of several grant applications:

For the past three years, I have relished the idea of creating a work for the grand staircases of New York City. As an artist who creates performance works that exist amidst daily life, and are therefore accessible to a potential audience of thousands, the grand staircases pose numerous artistic challenges, both logistically and philosophically. I am fascinated by the grand staircases’ grandeur, imposing architectural stature, and the ostentatious embellishments that belie the stairs’ mere utilitarian function as a means of approach and retreat.

The Grand Step Project is a logical extension of the site-specific work I’ve created for the past fifteen years. I am forever searching for sites to create on/with; sites that, upon inspection, reveal varied uses over time and that, while embodying the past, have a present function and offer a forecast of the future. I see The Grand Step Project as a way to connect several unique and historic sites located throughout New York City and to bring a new context to each individual site. I am excited by the opportunity to have a work of dance and music bridge different time periods, cultures and communities. This work is a new variation on street art, and on a large scale, intersects the performing arts with urban daily life.

I don’t want my art to exist in a vacuum. I am vehemently opposed to the notion of “Art for Art's sake” (at least for my own art making). I want my artistic output to become a part of how people relate to society, to their community, to themselves. I believe the arts should be as inclusive as possible without obviously, giving up any of its diversity, beauty, ugliness, pain or pleasure. I believe that my art should communicate clearly and understandably. I joke with people that I am proud to make "accessible art" and if I am considered “radical” in any way, it stems from that fact. I delight in knowing that, my work, if it had a chance to be seen by almost anyone, would be understandable on some level. Looking at the history of my output, this approach has led me to make work from the fabric of the community I work in.

The staircases I have selected to premier this work were built close to the turn of the 20th Century, during a time of tremendous prosperity and growth for New York City and the nation as a whole. These structures architecturally echo an ancient era of Greek and Roman hegemony whose architectural forms were borrowed and adapted to engender deference to the civic and cultural institutions whose buildings are graced with a grand staircase. With The Grand Step Project, I seek to feature these symbols of American hegemony while infusing them with brilliant, living images of people in everyday pursuit; literally, a democracy of dance and music.

I have never made a site adaptive work before – meaning, a work that is created in concept and form for a particular type of site but has the flexibility to travel and be adapted to multiple sites. Thus this work poses a number of new artistic challenges:

• I will have to conceive of one work that spans several different yet similar sites. My aim is to create content that is carried over from site to site in addition to containing unique variations that pertain to each particular place. My challenge is to create choreography that can be flexible enough to answer both concerns. The same challenge will be mirrored in the creation of the recorded score which will similarly evolve from site to site.
  
  
• As a site, steps pose both an interesting opportunity for visual/physical design and also a challenge. My aim is to create movement that will both fill the space, and even work against gravity to give an altered sense of what is physically possible.
  
  
• Another challenge will be to find the right balance in the choreographic narrative between abstract and literal imagery and to make the material visually understandable to audience members who will be seeing the work from different vantage points in the street/city. In other words, I will search for ways for choreographic patterns and forms to hold up when seen from the center, from the side, even from windows above the steps.