Six Collaborators Reflect on Robert Wilson's Legacy One Year After His Passing

On the first anniversary of avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson's death, CULTURED magazine published reflections from six artists and collaborators: actor Willem Dafoe, set designer Thomas Kamm, director and designer Carlos Soto, Watermill Center managing director Elise Herget, musician Anna Calvi, and artistic director Charles Chemin. Wilson, who founded the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds in 1968 and purchased the Watermill Center in 1986, died in 2025. The contributors recall his precise gestural language, his ability to see potential in people, and his transformative influence on their practices. Dafoe notes Wilson's instruction was about gesture and timing, never psychology. Kamm, who designed sets from 1979 to 1987, says Wilson taught him to see more clearly. Soto, who first wrote to Wilson at age 15 after seeing Alice at BAM, describes Wilson as a mentor who helped him find courage on stage. Herget, who worked at Watermill for 15 years, remembers Wilson's mischievous smile and his trust in young people. Calvi, who composed music for The Sandman and Moby Dick, praises Wilson's intuition and ability to sculpt light and movement. Chemin, who collaborated with Wilson for 33 years, says Wilson's legacy includes his integration of all arts and his distortion of space and time. The Watermill Center continues to operate as a laboratory for creative thinking, with its annual festival 'limitless time' scheduled for July 25.