Programming for Rural Avant-Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience Exhibition: John Cage Painted STEPS in collaboration with Ray Kass and the Mountain Lake Workshop in 1989 at Kass’s Christianburg, VA, studio. The format and method for the performance painting were conceived in a series of telephone conversations between Cage and Kass. The work was intended as homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s 1951 painting, Automobile Tire Print, in which Cage collaborated by driving the car, and also as a “zen” painting depicting the image of the solitary person passing through life, a theme that had previously engaged Cage’s interest during his watercolor painting workshops. Cage stepped out of two pans of black ink and walked backwards over a long sheet of rag paper placed on the studio floor while pulling the handle of a 56-inch-wide brush over his footsteps. The wide brush applied a dark, grey-black wash over the black impressions of his footsteps. Upon completion of the painting, Cage remarked (as he had on several occasions in his Mountain Lake painting workshops), “It doesn’t matter who holds the brush.”

About Full Circle Dance Company Full Circle Dance Company, under direction of Donna L. Jacobs, is a multiethnic professional ensemble that performs exciting choreography from a variety of modern dance traditions. Based in Baltimore, the company draws on the diverse backgrounds of its dancers and works in a collaborative spirit to bring technically stunning and emotionally challenging dance to a wide audience.

Light reception to follow.