In Elad Lassry’s untitled super 16mm film, New York City Ballet dancers Megan LeCrone and Ask La Cour perform the last minute of the seminal choreography by George Balanchine for the pas de deux from Agon (1957). The dancers are filmed from a pre-determined positioning of the camera based upon Doris Humphrey's diagram from her 1958 book "The Art of Making Dances" in which she breaks the dance stage into potential relative strength points. In referencing the foundation of Structuralist film, histories of dance on film, and the tension between neo classicism and modernism, the artist asks the audience to revisit cultural production from the perspective of a collaboration that has never happened.
Israeli-born, Los Angeles-based artist Elad Lassry received a BFA in both Film and Studio Art from the California Institute of the Arts in 2003, and received an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Southern
California in 2007. His first solo exhibition was at Cherry and Martin in Los Angeles in 2007. His work is included in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Israel Museum. This fall he will participate in the 2008 California Biennial.