First presented as an installation at Documenta XI in 2002, and subsequently performed at The Kitchen, Lines in the Sand: Helen in Egypt was Joan Jonas´ first New York performance in over a decade. With this multimedia production, the legendary artist revisits the myth of Helen of Troy using her emblematic vocabulary of ritualized gestures and symbolic objects mixed with live drawing and video, Las Vegas kitsch and pre-recorded sound.

Jonas is a pioneer of contemporary video, performance and installation-based practices. Over the years she has developed and steadily refined a language of props (mirror, mask, video monitor) and choreographed movements (the dance of veil and scarf, drawing in the sand) that explore notions of subjectivity as they are configured in folk, fairytale and ritual.