keys to my city

In 'keys to my city,' Italian-born dancer and choreographer Alice Gosti and her collaborators Lorraine Lau and Alyza DelPan-Monley perform movements wearing a dress made of keys. 'keys to my city' was first conceived of by Gosti in 2016, as she was considering ways to create art out of ordinary objects. “I was looking at objects that are around us constantly. The image of the keys was coming back to me,” she says.

Obsessed with the idea of creating a dress made of keys, Gosti set to work creating the first iteration of the dress, collecting thousands of broken, discarded, and unfinished keys from locksmiths in Seattle, Washington. The dress is composed of more than 1,500 keys, and weighs approximately 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms).

For her groundbreaking work, Gosti was named a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise Honoree in Dance in 2012. In celebration of the 10 year anniversary of this honor and as an ode to the Vilcek Foundation’s 2022 Prizes in Dance, The Vilcek Foundation partnered with Gosti to produce 'keys to my city.'

https://www.vilcek.org

Credits:

'keys to my city' by Alice Gosti

Executive Producers: Rick Kinsel, Kayla Clifford & The Vilcek Foundation

Directed by the Craig Brothers

Producers: We Are Films, Malacarne & John C. Robinson

Created with Lorraine Lau & Alyza DelPan-Monley

Performed by Alice Gosti, Lorraine Lau & Alyza DelPan-Monley

Music by Nordra

Audio post production by Adam Wolcott Smith

Special thanks to the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University & The Metropolitan Museum of Art