From Beth Gill and Cori Olinghouse:

We are captivated by the idea of material in terms of what it can include: the material of the body, of objects and visual elements, of history, of memory, of the imagination and unconscious. We see this festival as a way of examining the plasticity inherent in the idea of form. What began as a discussion of the problem areas that impact and shape our own artistic work—appropriation, a tortured love/hate relationship to a postmodern dancing tradition, the absence of effort as an aesthetic, and the problematic notion of authenticity—this festival is imagined as a place of inquiry rather than a space of knowing; a frame for observing how artists are grappling with memory, the ghosts of various traditions, and how the material of the body is mined to subversively complicate, distort, confuse and reveal meaning. We advocate for gifting and exchange as an alternative means towards remembering, transmitting, reliving, and recreating history. By allowing artists to excavate and clear historically laden sites; to gift, exchange, and re-contextualize their work with other artists; to be seen in relationship to another artist's divergent solutions to similar concerns; or by revealing cultural and historical underbellies within one's own traditions—vanishing points looks at some of the many ways that the body is represented, how narrative gets constructed, and how histories are remembered and represented.