To choreographer and artist Moriah Evans, the body and the lineage from which the body emerges are inextricably linked and in constant conversation with one another. This conversation– that between the body and its history– is often conducted in the language of movement. As a language, as a way of being, movement is a crucial social process, and Evans’ choreography is notorious for using that social process to reckon with bodies, identities, and generational knowledge. These movement politics are explored assiduously in Evans’ new performance installation, Remains Persist, which will see its West Coast debut at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary from October 28 through November 4th. The installation is part of the Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival Vol. 10, presented by Los Angeles Performance Practice, and taking place at various venues across the city.

Remains Persist, brought to this coast as part of MOCA’s Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs this fall, is a four-hour durational performance which weaves together the individual somatic experiences of each performer and transforms them into corporeal movements: Remains Persist endeavors to understand each performer’s disparate past through a collective, kinetic present. The installation encourages late seating and allows guests to enter and exit the gallery as they please, functioning on an open basis, as a research laboratory or reality TV show or medical clinic might: the project, seeking to synthesize the “remains” of the individual as it might fit with a whole, prods at the idea of  (and perhaps, the importance of) “subjectivity” in movement.

Exploring the vestiges of lineage through bodily expression, manufacturing harmony through disparate and often antithetical identities, Evans’ Remains Persist interrogates the soul that animates the body, and provokes the fragments that seek companionship through touch.  Visit the porous performances, stay in the gallery for as long as possible, and, alongside the performance, engage with Evans herself: in addition to the performances, Evans and the performers will facilitate open participatory workshops and clinics based on Evans' methods and practice. The installation will be open through November 4th, and tickets are $10 ($8 for MOCA members).