ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts presented Molly Davies’s Autopsy and Dressing, at Digital & Video Art Fair 2006 Paris – A Tribute to Matthew Barney.

Polly Motley performed during the exhibition.

Autopsy

1998

Video/sound installation

12 minutes continuous loop

One channel of video projected on the wall, amplified mono sound, using one speaker on the floor.

Performance and concept by Polly Motley, Video manipulation by Molly Davies

DJ by Beth Coleman/ DJ Singe

DRESSING

1998

Video/sound installation

Performance by Polly Motley. Sound by Beth Coleman/ DJ Singe.

6 minutes continuous loop

Three channels of color video on 21” monitors on black table, three channels of amplified mono sound, using three speakers on the floor.

Molly Davies started making experimental films in the late 1960’s in New York City. For multi media performance pieces she has collaborated with artists including John Cage, David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi, Lou Harrison, Michael Nyman, Alvin Curran, Fred Frith, Suzushi Hanayagi, Sage Cowles, Polly Motley, Jackie Matisse and Anne Carson. Her work has been presented at such sites as the Venice Film Festival, the Centre Pompidou, Musée de l’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée d’Art Contemporain Lyon, The Getty, Theatre Am Turm, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Arts Center, Asia Society, the Kitchen, La MaMa E.T.C., Dance Theatre Workshop, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the Indonesian Dance Festival. Her video installation work is in the collections of the Getty Research Institute, the Musée Art Contemporain Lyon and the Walker Art Center.  Her major works include “David Tudor’s Ocean” a six-channel piece documenting performances by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and “Sea Tails” a three-channel, six monitor piece integrating film footage of Jackie Matisse’s underwater kites with a score by David Tudor.

Polly Motley is a choreographer, performer, collaborator and teacher with more than thirty years of extensive experience in dance, video and performance making. She trained from an early age in classical and contemporary dance forms—ballet, jazz, tap, modern and post-modern styles.  She began improvising and choreographing in 1974 while dancing with experimental dance/theater companies in Houston and Austin, Texas.  She joined the faculty of Loretto Heights College in Denver in 1982.  She worked with Barbara Dilley at  Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she studied dance ethnology, contemplative dance, and creative process.  She performed, choreographed, and was a faculty member for Naropa University until she moved from Colorado in 1996.  Her work at Naropa included  dance-theater/video interactions,  multi-media performance meditations (with New York film/installation artist, Molly Davies), and composed vocal/gestural improvisations.

Motley has collaborated with a roster of dance, music, visual and literary artists that includes Steve Paxton, Dana Reitz, Simone Forti, Charles Amirkhanian, Takehisa Kosugi, Fred Frith, Anne Carson, and Jack Collom.  She was the first choreographer from the United States for the Triangle Arts Program, an exchange between the United States, Japan and Indonesia.  Her most recent participation in that program included performing at the Asia Society in New York with Indonesian dance master, Mugiyono, and Japanese performer, Kota Yamazaki. 

Motley’s newest solo, Dancing the Numbers, was recently presented at the Danspace Project in New York to critical praise. Her work is supported by state and National Endowment for the Arts awards and choreography fellowships. It has been presented by the Jack Tilton Gallery, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen,  Danspace Project , The Colorado Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Bates College Dance Festival, The New York Improvisation Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Edge Festival San Francisco, Tulane University Art Gallery, MousonTurm (Frankfurt), and the Indonesian Dance Festival, Jakarta among other venues. 

Motley received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a thesis on the interactive relationships of video and performance.