“...the choreography alternates between sensuously intimate and hedonistically frenetic. The tone set by low, red lighting and a droning, instrumental soundtrack is interrupted by intermittent photographic flashes that leave a blinding retinal burn in their wake: Is the audience seeing too much, or not enough?”
Cassils's ongoing critical engagement with the work of twentieth-century artist Yves Klein is central to Movement 1: Human Measure (2024). The new work is a performative reinterpretation of Klein’s infamous Anthropometries (1960), in which the late artist used the paint-slathered bodies of nude female models as passive “human paintbrushes.”
Cassils channels the key elements of Klein’s precedent but ruptures its dynamics, allowing their performers to actively navigate the stakes of visibility.
Movement I captures and redeploys footage of the live dance piece Human Measure, created in collaboration with choreographer Jasmine Albuquerque in 2022. The choreography is inspired by self-defense moves, reconfiguring threats of violence into poetic compositions that reflect the group's agency and inversions of power. The dancers' gestures undulate between moments of tenderness and scenes of brutality, interpreting themes of self-actualization against an antagonistic political backdrop, in which trans* people face severe discrimination, stigma, and systemic inequality.
Movement I draws on the legacies of experimental film by transforming dance documentation into an abstraction
The film is visually doubled by projecting it onto a pool of water, evoking a Rorschach effect. A sonic reinterpretation of Klein's 1949 Monotone Symphony, composed by Cassils's longtime collaborator Kadet Kuhne, is integral to the installation. Seventeen trans* vocalists sing the composition, each holding a single, sustained note that spans seventeen octaves. Audible throughout the gallery spaces, the music is translated into mechanical vibrations through devices embedded in the reflecting pool’s subfloor, unsettling the placid surface of the water and fracturing the gaze.
Movement I (Human Measure), 2024 Single-channel film installation with surround sound 27 minutes (looped) Reflective pool: wood, water, rubber, liner, bass shakers, black food dye Produced in collaboration with Banff Centre, and with additional support from Paul D. Fleck Fellowship. Courtesy of the artist
See full credits below, click on "Image + media credits for this page".
Development for initial installation at the Walter Phillips Gallery Curator: Jacqueline Belle Lead Preparator: Mimmo Maiolo Gallery Assistant: Megan Feniak Audio Mastering: Ben Ewing Colourist: Jozef Karoly VFX Editor: Court Brinsmead Crew for Live Performance of Human Measure at REDCAT, Los Angeles (filmed 2023): Lead Artist: Cassils Co-producer/Stage Manager: Gina Young Co-producer: Diana Wyenn Choreographer: Jasmine Albuquerque Lighting Designer: Christopher Kuhl Composer: Kadet Kuhne
Movement I (Human Measure), 2024 Single-channel film installation with surround sound 27 minutes (looped) Reflective pool: wood, water, rubber, liner, bass shakers, black food dye Produced in collaboration with Banff Centre, and with additional support from Paul D. Fleck Fellowship. Courtesy of the artist
Development for initial installation at the Walter Phillips Gallery:
Curator: Jacqueline Belle Lead Preparator: Mimmo Maiolo Gallery Assistant: Megan Feniak Audio Mastering: Ben Ewing Colourist: Jozef Karoly VFX Editor: Court Brinsmead
Crew for Live Performance of Human Measure at REDCAT, Los Angeles (filmed 2023):
Lead Artist: Cassils Co-producer/Stage Manager: Gina Young Co-producer: Diana Wyenn Choreographer: Jasmine Albuquerque Lighting Designer: Christopher Kuhl Composer: Kadet Kuhne
Cyanotype Technical Director: Bonny Taylor Flash Wall Advisor: Casey Cunneen
Special thanks to SITE SANTA FE’s exhibitions team: Max Holmes, Exhibitions Manager and Registrar, Kevin Frietas, Lead Preparator, Sabrina Griffith, Associate Registrar and Lighting Specialist, Alex Palma, AV Specialist, Damon Griffith, Special Projects Preparator, Patrick Boyles, Jon Hooge, Justin Hooge, Daniel Mullins, Kody Noble, Hannah Taylor, and Jess Zeglin
Human Measure utilizes foot- age from the live performance of Human Measure, 2022 at Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT). Human Measure was first commissioned on the occasion of the solo exhibition, Cassils: Human Measure, 2021, HOME Manchester, curated by Bren O’Callaghan, funded by Arts Council England and Manchester City Council; and workshopped at Banff Centre with support from a Paul D. Fleck Fellowship. Human Measure was further supported by the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund. With additional thanks to the Villa Bellagio Residency through the Rockefeller Foundation, INMATT Foundation, Canadian Stage and REDCAT for their continued support.
CREDITS Choreographer: Jasmine Albuquerque
Dancers: Kaydence De Mere, Canyon Carballosa, Cassils, jas lin, Alucard Mendoza McHaney, Marval Rex and B Gosse
Composer: Kadet Kuhne
Vocalists: Sasha Wilde, Ben Barwick, Valeria Radchenko, Lou Sheppard, Tobaron Waxman, Caleb Craig, Parker Heyford, Aron Dahl, Lucas Bouk, Vanessa Wheeler, C Han, Leslie Allison,
Torii Wolf, Socks Whitmore, Emma Tome, Oliver Lyric, Sof Kreidstein and Noah D
Director: PJ Raval
Producer: Farihah Zaman and Rebecca Rufer
DP: Amina Zadeh
AC: Emma Feinberg and Sam Greenspan
Steady Camera Operator A: Wes Turner
Steady Camera Operator B: Victor Grossling
Infrared and Overhead Camera Operator: Graham Kolbins
PA: Emma Feinberg and John Armstrong
Editor: Arshia Fatima Haq
For all cyanotypes: photo by Bonny Taylor.
For all black and white images: photo by Manuel Vason
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
