On This Spot - Joan Jonas

66 Grand Street, Ground-Breaking Performance Artist
Joan Jonas moved to SoHo in the mid-1960s where she practiced an art that combined video and dance. Sculptural objects, masks, costumes and mirrors were often part of her phantasmagoric productions. She performed in vacant lots by the abandoned West Side Highway while the audience watched from a nearby rooftop. On a 1970 trip to Japan, Jonas studied Noh Theatre and bought an early video camera that she used in her work. “Video became a vehicle for women’s voices,” she said. “It was unexplored territory.”