The Watermill Center and Robert Wilson’s vision
Something suspicious is going on behind a pair of innocuous gates on the back roads of Watermill. People, mostly young, come and go, many speaking in foreign languages. The Cold War is over, but I put on my investigative reporter’s hat and decided to see if there was any cleverly disguised subversive activity to uncover.
What I found instead was a hidden treasure in the Hamptons and a group of congenial, creative people—Americans and many other nationalities. If the center is perhaps better known to people in Paris or Berlin or Zurich than to residents of Amagansett or Sagaponack, it is with some reason. The Watermill Center is hard to sum up, difficult to describe to your friends in a few simple sentences. It, like the many creative works born and nourished there, is maturing and evolving.
The center is well known in Europe because Robert Wilson, who is American, has been an important force in European culture for many years. The author with Philip Glass of Einstein on the Beach, and an artist and director who ventures far in many fields, he is the animating spirit behind the center. Having developed a collaborative creative process over three decades, in 1992 he took it to the next level, creating a laboratory environment and internship program where young people work with established masters. The purpose is not just to conceive new works in theater, music, film, dance, the visual arts, architecture, design and the humanities, but to plan models of creative collaboration that can carry over to the worlds of business and diplomacy.
I recently asked Robert to show me what was going on, and since my beat is the Hamptons, to tell me how the Watermill Center relates to the community around it. Creative projects—and these are just a few of the seventeen or so currently going on—include a workshop with scientists to develop a theater piece on life in the 21st century; a dance piece called Barcelona Point (as in the tip of land near Sag Harbor) to premiere in Milan; and an overall concept for the historic renovation of a quarter in Berlin.
What has all this to do with the Hamptons? A lot, as it turns out. The talent and necessary funds from this country and abroad converge in Watermill, and from there the results circulate out to influence creative work around the world. The center brings to our community an important cultural resource, and when construction is complete, local students and residents will have access to performances and to remarkable permanent collections, as well as Wilson’s archive and library. The collections cover art, photography, ceramics and furniture—including a major collection of 20th century chairs. Robert recently formed an advisory board composed of local people to help guide the future of the center, with the thought that one day the Watermill Center will not only be there for the community to use but will be run by the community.
There’s a nice bit of local history here. The core building was constructed in 1925 by Western Union and functioned as a laboratory for developing and testing communications. In a sense, it functions that way once again. The structure is being renovated and expanded, and for now rehearsals take place under large tents on the six acre property. Until a Certificate of Occupancy is issued, the center cannot be opened to the public, but there are ways around that. If you are young, artistic, talented and hard working, you might slip in undercover. If you are like the rest of us, just attend the annual summer benefit on Saturday, August 14th. For ticket information, call 212 253-7484.