Robert Wilson In Situ

About The Film

A few days before the opening of the Watermill Center, Robert Wilson is in a race against the clock. This documentary captures Wilson in the process of taking possession of a vacant building on Long Island — a former Western Union research facility on the edge of the Shinnecock Reservation — and transforming it into an art center that will become one of the most significant residency spaces for experimental performance in the world.

The film moves between Wilson's relationship to this specific physical endeavor and a broader reflection on his artistic history: he looks back at the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, the artistic community where his theatrical work began in the 1960s, and reflects on what it means to return to that spirit of collective creation and experimentation in a dedicated institutional form. Friends, collaborators, and artists Wilson has worked with over his career offer their perspectives on the man and his project — building a picture of Wilson not just as a theater director but as an educator, a gatherer of people, and a builder of community.

As director Pauline de Grunne described it: "A few days before the opening of Watermill Center, Robert Wilson is in a race against the clock. After a decades-long international stage career, he looks back at the special laboratory that was the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, the artistic community where he got his start, and decides to return to his roots." — International Festival of Films on Art