LONDON.- In July 2026, Tate Modern will mark the 60th anniversary of Yvonne Rainer’s influential dance Trio A, staging free performances of the work in the Turbine Hall, presented with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels and in collaboration with Rose Choreographic School. This will be the first time the work has been performed live in the UK for 12 years.

Choreographer, writer, dancer and filmmaker Rainer (born 1934) is known for her outstanding contribution to the evolution of performance, post-modern dance and film, developed in New York in the 1960s. Closely associated with the art of American minimalism, Rainer is noted for an innovative approach to dance which treats the body as the source of movement rather than the conveyor of plot or narrative. In 1962, Rainer co-founded the Judson Dance Theater in New York with Steve Paxton, which included Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Robert Rauschenberg, with many of its radical methods going on to become standard features of contemporary art today.

Trio A, Rainer’s signature dance work, was originally conceived in 1965 and first performed at the Judson Memorial Church in 1966. The piece was a culmination of several years of experimenting with what Rainer called ‘ordinary dance’ and ‘neutral doing’, a combination of ‘found’ or everyday movements that unfold without repetition or breaks. The work, like its title, is not intended to have a narrative, but rather to depict movement itself, with the dancer deliberately refusing to make eye contact with the audience. Lasting approximately four and a half minutes depending on the performer, the piece consists of a varied sequence of movements, which appear to be in continuous motion. Over the years, Rainer has reinvented the piece according to different contexts and with different numbers of dancers; from dancing it solo in tap shoes to staging it in 1970 with nude dancers draped in American flags, protesting the Vietnam War.

Rainer has always intended for the piece to be shared and relayed. In Tate Modern’s iconic Turbine Hall on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 July, Trio A will be performed continuously from 14.00 until the museum’s late closing at 21.00. It will be brought to life by a group of dancers led by Sara Wookey, one of eight certified transmitters of Rainer’s repertoire.

To coincide with these performances, Rainer will give a remote artist talk in the Starr Cinema on Saturday 11 July. She will be joined in-person by Interim Director of Tate Modern Catherine Wood, author of Yvonne Rainer – The Mind is a Muscle (2007). Alongside these performances, the 1978 film of Rainer dancing Trio A, now in Tate’s Collection, will be played in the Tanks Lobby.

This programming of Trio A forms part of Tate’s wider commitment to exhibiting, collecting and researching performance and participatory artworks. In June, the second edition of the Infinities Commission - the annual commission showcasing the limitless experimentation of contemporary art - will open, seeing artist, choreographer and performer nora chipaumire create a new work for Tate Modern’s Tanks. Across the school summer holidays, the Turbine Hall will host a new large-scale participatory performance by Lithuanian born artist Lina Lapelytė for UNIQLO Tate Play. Visitors will be invited to move through a maze of barriers, using simple actions such as stomping, jumping and singing, in time with an accompanying soundscape to create a piece of collective choreography.

Other upcoming events include the conference Alterfuturisms: Decentring Speculative Imaginaries, a day of talks, performances and screenings which brings together artists and thinkers challenging sci-fi traditions.

These follow significant recent performances such as the world premiere of Shu Lea Cheang and Dondon Hounwn’s Hagay Dreaming in March 2025, a well as a live programme of contemporary flamenco and dance as part of recent exhibition Theatre Picasso.