‘Project’ Celebrates Grandma Moses Through Dance

She was in her 70s when she began painting; by the time she died at 101 in 1961, folk artist Anna Mary (Grandma) Moses had long been accorded international fame for her vivid primitive works.

The acclaim may belong to a different era, but Moses’ scenes of simple, turn-of-the-century rural life can still inspire: “The Grandma Moses Project,” the newest work from award-winning dancer-choreographer Loretta Livingston is a celebratory dance performance based on the artist’s work, with unexpected resonance for a contemporary family audience.

It premieres today at 2 p.m. at UCLA’s Wadsworth Theater.

When Livingston first considered the piece in 1991, “I kidded myself and said this is probably the least politically correct project I could be doing.” Her first goal, she said, was simply to create a work accessible to a wide audience, not just for the “very educated, sophisticated contemporary art viewer.”

“I wanted it to be a production that everyone would find something in, that children, seniors and the non-dance-educated audience could stay with.

“Art reminds us of what it is to be human,” she said. “Why should it be elitist?”

Yet, as she began to immerse herself in the folk artist’s work, Livingston found that it had a surprising significance in this time of increased alienation and strife.

“In difficult times people need to be reminded of the simple affirmations of the good things in life,” Livingston said. Moses’ work “deals with things that people, regardless of their age or culture, understand: seasons, cycles, childhood, adulthood. Her work is very circular; there’s a wholeness to it. It fits into a community.”

Looking at each of Moses’ paintings as “a captured moment in time,” Livingston “invented what came before that moment and what came after” in order to create a series of story vignettes based on specific works.

With her collaborators, theater designer Martha Ferrara and composer Murielle Hamilton, Livingston organized the performance into four sections--Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. During the changing seasons, her six-member dance ensemble portrays “a hired girl, hired man, two daughters, the mother/wife and father/husband.”

Ferrara “lifted a lot of the silhouettes and color from the paintings,” Livingston said, “but she also researched and found historical pattern makers in the Midwest. The palette she used deepens with the seasons.

“Murielle supports that in the instrumentation. Spring is a youthful frolic and the colors are light and frothy. Summer is a little more ripe, earthy. Autumn begins to be haunted, a look back as the adults count up the seasons and anticipate winter. Winter, of course, is that stillness before spring.

“Audience members will identify with the character closest to who they are,” Livingston said. For children, there is the daughters’ “joy and impishness.”

There is also that “sense of joy of being a child in an adult world. Contemporary children often don’t have that sense,” Livingston said. “They’re exposed to very grown-up materials, television movies. . . . In this piece, these children have a place to be, they are not expected to be adults, they fit. That comes back to the idea of wholeness.”

A massive quilt, 18 feet high and 36 feet wide, forms the backdrop for the dance. Created by Ferrara, each of the 18 six-foot square panels contains elements from Moses’ works.

The dance performance will tour for the public and in schools across the country as part of Livingston’s extensive outreach programming. On Friday, it will be presented to 900 children in the L.A.’s BEST program for at-risk youth.

“The Grandma Moses Project,” UCLA’s Wadsworth Theater, grounds of the West L.A. Veteran’s Administration, today at 2 p.m.; $14-$18 (ages 16 and under, half-price). Information: (310) 825-2101.