This panel will examine the nature of collaboration between choreographers and visual artists. It will pay special attention to the Diaghilev era (when painters like Picasso designed costumes and décor for choreographers like Massine), the work of Merce Cunningham (who regularly collaborated with visual artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns), and the Judson-era choreography of Yvonne Rainer (who was influenced by the work of minimalist sculptors such as Carl Andre and Robert Morris). The panel will also examine the imaginative roots of crossing over—in which boundaries are broken and one genre cross pollinates with another—as it manifests itself in dance, painting and other art forms.

Noel Carroll is currently Andrew W. Mellon Term Professor in the Humanitites at Temple University. He has written and edited fifteen books dealing with topics as various as film theory, mass culture, and the aesthetics of the visual and performing arts.

Roger Copeland is Professor of Theater and Dance at Oberlin College. He has published articles about dance and theater in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Village Voice, Partisan Review, and many other journals. His books include What Is Dance? and Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance.

Mary Fleischer is Professor of Theatre Arts and serves as Chair of the Division of Fine & Performing Arts at Marymount Manhattan College. Her interdisciplinary interests have motivated performance and research activities, including her recent publications, "Incense & Decadents: Symbolist Theatre's Use of Scent" in The Senses in Performance, edited by Sally Banes and André Lepecki, and Embodied Texts: Symbolist Playwright-Dancer Collaborations.

Lynn Garafola is the author of The Ballets Russes and its World. She teaches in the Department of Dance at Barnard College.

Yvonne Rainer is a choreographer and filmmaker. She was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and has presented her choreography throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 1968 she began to integrate short films into her live performances, and by 1975 made a complete transition to filmmaking. Her work has received several awards, and in 1990 she was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation award.

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