Video – 35:45 Excerpts from 5 hour endurance performance

Video – 04:16 Excerpts from 5 hour endurance performance

Take it To the Bridge Series:
Corcoran Gallery of Art overhead entryway, a temporary performance installation.

(2012) September 15 – 11 A.M. to 4 P.M.   This Space Occupied (by Maida)
Maida Withers, with composer Steve Hilmy, reveals the precariousness of life in the glass cage in This Space Occupied – a 5-hour stream of consciousness event inspired by notions of the Occupy movement.  This endurance event is an interactive performance of structured improvisation and  stream of consciousness choices by Maida Withers, internationally recognized dance artist, and Steve Hilmy, award winning electronic composer and musician.  The elevated glass entryway at the Corcoran is transformed through dance, choreography, text and memory.  The artist interacts with the audience through direct verbal conversation with patrons asking Maida questions via the microphone.
Note: Five blocks from the Corcoran, men and women were physically testing the right of citizens to occupy the public park along K street in downtown Washington, DC.

This Space Occupied was performed in the following international festivals:

Barents SPEKTAKEL (2013) February ?  *Kirkenes, Norway. This Space Occupied performance was supported, in part, by the U.S. Embassy, Oslo, Norway.
Luba Kusovnikova* produced the annual Barents SPEKTAKEL, an annual event sponsored by the King of Norway (see note below). Wither’s performance was in a storefront window with the audience standing outside in the dark and freezing Norway winter setting of snow, ice, and cold in the dark.  Steve Hilmy performed electronic music, inside the store, viewed by the audience through the “front of store” window.  *Kirkenes lies on a peninsula along the Bøkfjorden, an arm of the large Varangerfjorden, and is located just a few kilometres from the Norway–Russia border.

Visoes Urbanas Festival  (2013)  March ?  São Paulo, Brazil – Visoes Urbanas International Street Festival, directed by Mirtes Calheiros and Ederson Lopez through CIA Artesaos do Corpo Teatro Dance organization.  This Space Occupied performance took place in the amazing  São Paulo, Brazil Museum of Image and Sound (MIS). (See photos below).

Promotional Photos of Maida Withers by Shaun Schroth, Washington, DC

Steve Hilmy, Composer/Musician

Photos Below: Maida Withers  This Space Occupied  (2012)
Take It To The Bridge  –  Corcoran Gallery of Art Entrance

Photos below:  Maida Withers
São Paulo, Brazil, Museum of Media and Sound.
Visoes Urbanas International Street Festival. (3/23/2013)
Regrets:  No photos available – Barents SPEKTAKEL
February (2013) Kirkenes, Norway

What the press is saying

Maida Withers, Washington, DC, performer, choreographer, and filmmaker, working with composer Steve Hilmy, reveals the precariousness of life in the glass cage in a 5-hour stream of consciousness event inspired by notions of the Occupy Movement. Washington Project for the Arts & Corcoran Gallery of Art