Julia Mandle created the performance, Six Square, for the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City. Working with a group of performers, she used the innovative architecture of the Storefront to turn the gallery space inside out.

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The performers manipulated the positions of the rotating facade panels as they navigated between the threshold of the interior and the exterior of the gallery. This spatial investigation is mirrored in the multilayered costumes worn by the dancers. Similar to the panels, the costumes were transformed by the dancers throughout the piece, calling into question the convergence of interior and exterior space, whether it is physical or psychological. As the performance inhabited the gallery and sidewalk, the audience was relocated to the street. While this dynamic challenged the traditional experience of viewing a performance, it is a paradigm for much of the work by Julia Mandle. Similar to the original intentions of the Storefront’s facade, Mandle’s mission is to take performance and art out of the theater/gallery and into the streets.

Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY, September 1999