‘Everybody Dance Now’ Opens at the AIGA

Disco ball hung and set spinning, the AIGA celebrated the opening on April 2nd of the exhibition Everybody Dance Now: 20 Years of Dancing in Print at the AIGA National Design Center in New York. The survey looks back at the magazines Dance Ink and 2wice and the longstanding collaboration between their publisher Patsy Tarr and art director and designer Abbott Miller. Many of the dancers, choreographers and artists featured in the pages of 2wice were present for the occasion, and while none of the attending designers attempted the moves pictured on the walls, a little shimmying could be detected among the group, along with a sense of wonder at the exuberant dance and design on display.

Designed by Miller, the exhibition presents over 40 issues of the magazines that appear to unfold along the walls of the gallery, the issues deconstructed and their pages mounted in succession on accordion-folded sheet-metal displays. Several issues of 2wice are presented in their entirety, emphasizing the cinematic nature of the magazine’s collaborations with dancers and choreographers. The display strategy allows visitors to see how the performances play out over multiple pages. Several intact issues are presented on banks of displays in the center of the gallery, where visitors can flip through their pages. On a large screen overhead pages from the magazines appear in a large-scale projection. A strategically placed 30-inch disco ball dapples the room, evoking the stage and the dance hall, and making pedestrians wandering down Fifth Avenue wonder if they are invited to the party. They are.

Let’s dance.

Installation photos by Harry Zernike. Party photos by Federico Rodriguez-Caldentey.