As part of her Spring 2009 course at the University of Buffalo, Saya Woolfalk chose a series of abstract paintings and sculptures by other artists to show her students. These works of art were intended to inspire her students to create the choreography for the performance of A Ritual of the Empathics. She wanted them to think about the ways the artist moved their body to create the work.
She chose these works with the dancers from the course because she liked the idea that the dancers would be making moving pictures out of this collaborative process. Some of the images come from an exhibition that was occurring at the Albright-Knox Gallery at the same time.
(All information from Saya Woolfalk)
She divided these abstract works into six separate categories:
| Color
Grace Hartigan, Summer Street, 1956 Hans Hoffmann, Sanctum Sanctorum, 1962 Clyfford Still, 1954 |
Ethereal
Barnett Newman, Genesis-The Break, 1946 Mark Rothko, No. 9, 1948 Helen Frankenthaler, unknown work There are three unidentified images |
Frankenthaler
Three unidentified images from Life magazine of Helen Frankenthaler with her works. |
| Geometric
Ad Reinhardt, Number 15, 1952 Kenneth Noland, Yellow Half, 1963 Barnett Newman, White and Hot, 1967 Ellsworth Kelly, unknown Norman Lewis, Untitled, 1946 |
Movement
Hans Hofmann, Fantasia, 1943 Willem de Kooning, unknown, 1955 Willem de Kooning, Ganesvoort Street, c. 1949 Jackson Pollock, Mural, 1943 |
Symoblic
Lee Krasner, Untitled, 1948 Jasper Johns, unknown, 1958 Peter Saul, Icebox #3, 1961 Claes Oldenburg, Funeral Heart, 1961 |
African American Performance Art Archive 
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