Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s

Carrie Lambert-Beatty is Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

"In this terrific book, Carrie Lambert-Beatty digs deep into minimalist dance and performance from the 1960s, helping us see its engagement with burgeoning mass media, Taylorized motion studies, and rampant systems-think. Yvonne Rainer's compelling work is linked to Fluxus, Happenings, and other time-based art from this crucial decade--her abstract yet demotic means are brilliantly analyzed in relation to both spectacle and spectators in Being Watched." --Caroline A. Jones, Director, History, Theory, Criticism Program, Department of Architecture, MIT "Essential reading for anyone with an interest in Yvonne Rainer and the dynamic relationship between advanced performance and the visual arts during the 1960's and 1970's. Being Watched zeroes in on the most basic fact about live performance: its ephemeral nature; and the book that results is a profound meditation on the problematic nature of 'seeing' itself." --Roger Copeland, author of Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance "A brilliantly vivid description of Rainer, Judson, and art making in the 1960s, Being Watched sets a new scholarly standard for dance and performance studies. Combining impeccable archival work, a nuanced understanding of the drama of vision, and a lyrical sensitivity to movement, Being Watched is an absolute pleasure to read. In these pages, Rainer emerges as a muscular thinker, a complicated personality, and one of the most influential choreographers of our time. Great artists need great commentators and here we are fortunate to see a truly compelling duet." --Peggy Phelan, The Ann O'Day Maples Chair in the Arts, and Professor of Drama and English, Stanford University