Five New York evenings, 1964 Photo: Stig T Karlsson/Moderna Museet

Performance: I Would Like to Make a Phone Call

4.10 2025

Stockholm

Ryan Pliss and Nicholas Sciscione from the Petronio Projects bring the performance piece “I Would Like to Make a Phone Call” to life once again. See the 1964 work, created by Robert Rauschenberg and Steve Paxton, recreated and reinterpreted in a performance that combines image, movement and touch.

“I Would Like to Make a Phone Call” (Jag vill gärna telefonera) was created in 1964 by dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton (b. 1939) and Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008). The performance piece is now being reconstructed and interpreted by Ryan Pliss and Nicholas Sciscione from the Petronio Projects in connection with the symposium “Robert Rauschenberg and Surrealism”, part of Rauschenberg100 — throughout 2025, Robert Rauschenberg’s significant artistic legacy will be celebrated worldwide.

Performance

Petronio Projects reconstructions of “I Would Like to Make a Phone Call”

Date

Saturday 4 October 2025

Time

12, 14, 16

Place

I the Exhibition “The Subterranean Sky: Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection“, floor 4

Language

English

Price

Free admission, pre-registration required

Contact: Alexander Kateb, Moderna Museet

In 1964, Moderna Museet and Fylkingen jointly organised five New York evenings with ballet, concerts and happenings. Stockholm was visited by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company with John Cage, David Tudor, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Morris and Robert Rauschenberg. Between 1961 and 1965, Steve Paxton (American, b. 1939) toured as a dancer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. During that time he also made his own choreographic work and collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg, the company’s lighting, set, and costume designer.

For Five New York Evenings the two premiered “I Would Like to Make a Phone Call” (Jag vill gärna telefonera), in which they interpreted a collage of mostly sports photographs by mimicking each pose while freely linking the images through their physical movement and contact.

The work anticipates Contact Improvisation—a collaborative movement practice Paxton developed in his 1972 performance “Magnesium” in which participants use touch rather than sight to generate movement together. In 1982, Paxton gave the score for “I Would Like to Make a Phone Call” to his student, Stephen Petronio, who performed the work with Randy Warshaw. For the performance at Moderna Museet 3–4 October, Ryan Pliss and Nicholas Sciscione of Petronio Projects will reconstruct the 1982 version and create new interpretations of Paxton’s score.

Ryan Pliss

Ryan Pliss is a dance artist based in Nancy, France, originally from Ithaca, New York. He trained at De Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten and received a BFA in Dance Performance from the Conservatory of Dance (COD) at SUNY Purchase. Pliss has had the pleasure of touring across North America and throughout Europe performing the works of renowned choreographers such as Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Johannes Wieland, and Marie Chouinard. He is a Cunningham Technique® teacher recognized by The Merce Cunningham Trust and has taught on its behalf as well as at Cornell University’s Department of Performing and Media Arts and the COD at SUNY Purchase. He has been a member of the Stephen Petronio Company since 2017.

Nicholas Sciscione

Nicholas Sciscione was born and raised in Elizabeth, NJ. He graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Sciscione has worked with Joshua Beamish, Kyle Marshall Choreography, and 10 Hairy Legs. He is a grateful student of Susan Klein and the Klein Technique. Sciscione joined Stephen Petronio Company in 2011 and was Assistant to the Artistic Director from 2016 to 2024. He was a 2017 NY New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award nominee.

About Steve Paxton and Stephen Petronio

Steve Paxton

Dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton (1939-2024) was the founder of Contact Improvisation. Paxton began his movement studies in gymnastics and then trained in martial arts, ballet, and modern dance. In the summer of 1958, Paxton attended the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College, where he trained with choreographers Merce Cunningham and José Limón. After moving to New York City, he was a member of the José Limón Company in 1959 and of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1961-64. He was a founding member of the legendary dance collectives Judson Dance Theater and Grand Union.

Stephen Petronio

Stephen Petronio is recognized as one of the leading dance-makers of his generation. For over four decades, he has developed a singular movement language that explores the intuitive and complex possibilities of the body in relation to shifting cultural contexts. He is a graduate of Hampshire College, an early student of Steve Paxton, and was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, where he danced from 1979 to 1986.

Petronio has received numerous honors, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, and a 2015 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, as well as grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

In 2014, Petronio conceived an ongoing initiative, Bloodlines, to honor the experimental Judson pioneers who have inspired him and Bloodlines(future), to more equitably support the next generation of dancers and choreographers in this artistic lineage.

Founded in 1984, Stephen Petronio Company has toured to more than 40 countries and performed 24 celebrated seasons at The Joyce Theater in New York. The Company has been commissioned by major festivals and presenters across Europe and the U.S. In 2017, it completed a five-week DanceMotionUSA residency in Southeast Asia. The Company’s historic final season is in 2025.