Constance DeJong: Modern Love

About

Well-known for her contributions and influences to downtown New York's performance art and media art scene of the 1970s and '80s, DeJong’s writing extends off the page through the body, resonating out of objects and into the space of the theater. In 1976, DeJong performed selections of Modern Love at The Kitchen’s first-ever literary event (a bill shared with Kathy Acker). Two years later, shortly after the book's publication by Standard Editions, she produced a complete performance of the novel at The Kitchen, accompanied by prerecorded voices (including a cameo by David Warrilow of Mabou Mines) and music by Philip Glass. Though Modern Love was critically acclaimed upon its release, this “forgotten classic of narrative prose innovation” (Chris Kraus) fell out of print and into obscurity. The Kitchen is pleased to once again host DeJong who will revive this seminal early text and contextualize it with selections of new narrative works.