simone forti dance constructions

I have to be careful that the performers’ eyes stay open, and that they keep seeing. Through February 3. Exhibition of Dance Constructions, Huddle (1961). . I sometimes almost think of it as a wind chime in terms of the kind of walking through. In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a program titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things in a concert series organized by her friend, composer La Monte Young, at the New York loft studio of Yoko Ono. . Forti’s DANCE CONSTRUCTIONS are performed at MOMA on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 11:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 3:30 pm for the duration of the Judson Dance Theater exhibition. It parallels developments like Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy or some of Yayoi Kusama’s Happenings—but at a moment where collective action had become central to political life of the United States. Although Simone Forti’s influence on the field of postmodern dance is regularly acknowledged, her contributions to early 1960s US minimalism and conceptualism are frequently … And there are seven performers: three stand in that loop of rope and four people walk between the hangers. In mid-December the dances were formally added to MoMA’s collection. During the first week of the exhibition, the artist will be training the performers of her pieces, in sessions which the public is welcome to observe. It’s the job of the teacher to get them excited about the piece, and that the piece has its own interest and beauty. Performance. There are moments of silence if they’re both breathing in at the same time. WeisAcres, 537 Broadway, #3, New York, NY. The performers in the boxes are singing out a tone—a pitch—and it gets quite wild. These radically new dances created circumstances for the performers’ direct, non-stylistic actions. Made from inexpensive materials, including plywood and rope, each “construction” prompts actions such as climbing, leaning, standing or whistling. For Platforms, the performers themselves provide the soundtrack. Abstract This study, focusing on the 2015 acquisition of Simone Forti’s Dance Constructions, a suite of performance works first shown in New York in 1960 and 1961, by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), details the museum’s first acquisition of historical dance works and an important model for collecting live performance and time-based artworks.     Photo: Carol Peterson. JUDSON DANCE THEATER—THE WORK IS NEVER DONE. Forti devised the “Dance Constructions” quickly and in her 20s, two years after moving from California to New York (away from nature into a “maze of concrete mirrors,” she wrote in her 1971 book Handbook in Motion). And then the next tone might be higher or lower. 1961, Slant Board (1961), performed at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1982. She is particularly influenced by news and current events, and characterizes the trio of elements underpinning her later choreography as “body-mind-world.” As she elaborates: “You are not just body and mind, you are in the world, and I think it’s important to acknowledge all the voices that come to us through the media, to interpret the information, to try to understand how the information is formed and how we can relate to what is happening, how we get our impressions.”5. The dominant artistic movement in the 1940s and 1950s, Abstract Expressionism was the first to place New York City at the forefront of international modern art. These pieces proved to be influential in both the fields of dance and visual arts, and have been performed around the world since their development. More than documents of her “Dance Constructions,” Forti’s holograms became dancers themselves when she installed and interacted with them in performance spaces. Then on the out-breath, a tone. To see more recent additions to the collection, visit the website. I see it as a love duet. Two or three performers [move] from side to side and up and down the inclined plane in a very task-oriented way.”, Comer: “Slant Board suggests the playground and this idea of climbing or turning the sculptural object into a kind of architectural structure in which the participation with that structure is absolutely central to the work. Forti: “Some of the [ Dance Constructions] are more meditational, [but] some are quite wild, like Roller Boxes, which consists of two or three boxes on rollers, depending on the size of the space. “It’s important to stress that there is no one model for collecting performance—it really is case-by-case,” says Comer. To represent in or make conform to a particular style, especially when highly conventionalized or artistic rather than naturalistic. One performer lies beneath each box, whistling, as if to communicate with the other. In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a program titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things in a concert series organized by her friend, composer La Monte Young, at the New York loft studio of Yoko Ono. Athena Christa Holbrook, interviewed by Karen Kedmey, August 9, 2016. Forti: “Hangers is a meditative piece.   In the spring of 1961 Forti presented a full evening of pieces she called Dance Constructions, at Yoko Ono’s loft studio. But [it’s also difficult] for the walkers. (They’re currently being presented at Vleeshal, a contemporary arts organization in Middleburg, The Netherlands, through April 3. In the winter of 1938, the Forti family, including Forti's older sister Anna, left Italy to escape anti-Semitic persecution. They needed only to abide Forti’s “rule games” but were otherwise free to improvise gestures as they negotiated the object before them. Such a performer is likely to get a zombie look, because what is this anyway? An ARTPIX release. These radically new dances created circumstances for the … They do. We’ve done it here at MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, in the reflecting pool where we were standing with the water halfway to our knees.”, Comer: “Huddle has maybe become the best known Dance Construction. In a way it’s one of the more difficult pieces to perform because there’s so little to do, especially for the hangers. Before moving to New York in 1959, choreographer Simone Forti spent four heady, formative years in San Francisco. Kind of a nighttime piece.” We share commentary from Forti and Comer, as well as illustrations and some of the documentary materials that will help ensure “that they’re performed—and performed right.” Athena Christa Holbrook, the Department’s Collection Specialist, spent several days documenting the rehearsals—watch a clip of Hangers below—and she’ll be posting about her experience soon.) Her research involved both observation and participation. Sound is a central element in Accompaniment for La Monte’s “2 sounds” and La Monte’s “2 sounds” and Platforms. Simone Forti. Taking Halprin’s revolutionary technique as her touchstone, Forti relocated to New York in the early 1960s. Simone Forti, quoted in “High Line Art Performance: Simone Forti, Simone Forti, quoted in Patrick Steffen, “Forti On All Fours: A Talk with Simone Forti,”. At Yoko Ono’s loft in 1960, she debuted her Dance Constructions, so called, as she has explained, because they are “dance[s] but [they] also can be seen as sculpture[s] made of people.”1 Improvisation and chance shape the individual works that together comprise the Dance Constructions, which are characterized by understated, shifting movements, sounds, and formations. The foundational pieces she called Dance Constructions, for instance (first performed at the Reuben Gallery in 1960, and, the following year, in Yoko Ono’s loft), were, as the name implies, sculptural as well as choreographic. It was very exciting.” Stanford Libraries' official online search tool for books, media, journals, databases, government documents and more. It takes a little time.” I realized that with Anna [Halprin] I could make the same movements without having to deal with canvases that were left over.”3, Giving the Self to the Whole Describing her motivations behind the choreography for this morphing live sculpture, Forti has said: “I wanted to see something where you could watch people moving in a way that wasn’t stylized, that you could just see what it was like to have somebody climb, and to have people support that climbing, and to watch people in action doing something kind of unusual.”2. Simone Forti and Charlemagne Palestine, Illuminations (1971–ongoing), performed at Vleeshal Markt, Middelburg, 2 April 2016. SIMONE FORTI DANCE CONSTRUCTIONS* Saturday, November 24, at 11:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 3:30 pm. Slant Board. We ended up screaming. © 2016 Simone Forti, Forti: “Slant Board consists of [a] 45-degree angle usually made out of two [plywood] boards with rope along the top. Experimentation in Painting, Then Dance The resulting constellation of materials—ranging from teaching videos to sketches, historical photos, notebooks, and recorded interviews—extensively document previously performed versions and, crucially, offer precise instructions for future dancers. new acquisitions, In New York, Forti was working alongside and had close friendships with the choreographers who founded the groundbreaking artist collaborative known as the Judson Dance Theater, among them Rainer and sculptor Robert Morris. © 2016 Simone Forti. At the end of the decade, Forti and Morris moved east. There are three ropes attached to the ceiling in a triangle—they hang down and loop. Simone Forti’s radical choreography shares conceptual … Her ‘Dance Constructions’ (1960–61) made her a pioneer not only of Postmodern dance but also of Minimal art. It’s kind of a nighttime piece.” Huddle, a piece performed in silence, involves six to nine performers interlocking their bodies in a huddle. It’s breathing. Then an in-breath. Patti—at that time called Patti Oldenburg—was in one of the boxes, and I was in one of the boxes, and we were supposed to be singing single tones. Simone Forti From her early minimalist dance-constructions, through her animal movement studies, land portraits and news animations, Forti has had a seminal influence on her field. Art critic Harold Rosenberg coined the term “action painting” in 1952 to describe the work of artists who painted using bold gestures that engaged more of the body than traditional easel painting. Simone Forti in Conversation with Jennie Goldstein. A relaxed, good in-breath. It consists of two boxes with an open bottom, big enough for a person to be in the box with the box set down over them. A person who creates choreography is called a choreographer. Simone Forti. Simone Forti See Saw, 1960 Performance developed by Mie Frederikke Fisher Christensen & Margaux Parillaud Performance, wood, clay. Among them are Accompaniment for La Monte’s “2 sounds” and La Monte’s “2 sounds”, Platforms, and Huddle. Sometimes it sounds like they’re answering each other. In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a program titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things in a concert series organized by her friend, composer La Monte Young, at the New York loft studio of Yoko Ono.     Simone Forti recreates her innovative and influential Dance Constructions from 1961 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2004. They championed bold, gestural abstraction in all mediums, particularly large painted canvases. . Simone Forti began her career as a dancer in the mid-1950s when both she and Yvonne Rainer started taking classes in San Francisco with dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin. These radically new dances created circumstances for the … Born the daughter of Jewish industrialists in Florence in 1935, she has lived in the US since her family fled to Los Angeles in 1938. It’s highly participatory and suggests the way that notions of community were being rethought during the 1960s. In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a program titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things in a concert series organized by her friend, composer La Monte Young, at the New York loft studio of Yoko Ono. Her dance constructions Slant Board, See-Saw and Huddle will be performed in the exhibition on five occasions. 1961, Instruction sketch for Hangers (1961). Simone Forti (b. In December 2016, Danspace Project and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)’s Department of Media and Performance Art collaborated on an unprecedented Research Residency with artist Simone Forti, on the occasion of MoMA’s acquisition of Forti’s Dance Constructions (1961). . Huddle was a way of encouraging reflection on what happens when a group of people come together and how they negotiate each other.” This piece features two plain wooden boxes, each propped up on one side by a wedge. And then they start to get with it. The first performer turns the second one around in the rope.   The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The two of you are not in the same place, you’re each in your own dreams. 1960, Roller Boxes (1960), performed at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2004. So as you’re learning it, you’re becoming comfortable not only with trying to support the weight of the other performers…but also with being that close to the people around you and forming a unit that is so interconnected that it really becomes about the group rather than the individual.”4, “Body-Mind-World”   She decided to put aside her brushes and canvases and focus on dance. 2010. Included in the admission. To order this DVD and/or other Microcinema titles, go to: www.microcinemadvd****. Forti’s legendary body of work has always transgressed commonly-held boundaries between dance, performance art, sculpture, and music. Say a performer who is used to doing very technical things now is being asked to just stand there in the rope while walkers brush across them. The Fortis eventually settled in Los Angeles, where Forti attended public schools Gardner Street Elementary School, . That, too, came out of a kind of a need, or kind of a feeling. On Halprin’s outdoor dance deck in wooded Marin County, Forti explored improvisation, her motions guided by a keen alertness to the body’s anatomy. To the loud, scraping tones of Young’s recording, one performer approaches a second performer, who stands in a looped rope suspended from the ceiling. The two performers—each one in one of the boxes—whistle. During the weeklong residency, Forti, invited guests, and the public engaged in discussions and workshops to … [It] takes the right performer who can handle it and not get scared. The method with which an artist, writer, performer, athlete, or other producer employs technical skills or materials to achieve a finished product or endeavor. The boxes each have two ropes attached. There’s that awareness of each other. Roller Boxes. These radically new dances created circumstances for the performers' direct, non-stylistic actions. Sculpture was no longer a static, remote form to be contemplated, but one to be actively negotiated.” Often the viewer can see broad brushstrokes, drips, splashes, or other evidence of the physical action that took place upon the canvas. Simone Forti's art developed within the overlapping circles of New York City's advanced visual art, dance… . Forti’s teacher and mentor was embarking on the exploration of a new form of contemporary dance that rejected the structured choreography of modern dance in favor of improvisation and everyday movements. Where it’s like when you’re sleeping next to someone you love, and you’re in another place. A primarily American artistic movement of the 1960s, characterized by simple geometric forms devoid of representational content. The act of improvising, that is, to make, compose, or perform on the spur of the moment and with little or no preparation. From her early minimalist dance/constructions through her animal studies, news animations and land portraits, Forti has worked with an eye towards creating idioms for exploring natural forms and behaviors. “With all of the Dance Constructions, a huge part of it is trust,” Holbrook relates. When it is tightly wound, the first performer releases the rope, sending the second performer twirling as he or she rides out its untwisting. Relying on industrial technologies and rational processes, Minimalist artists challenged traditional notions of craftsmanship, using commercial materials such as fiberglass and aluminum, and often employing mathematical systems to determine the composition of their works. [For] Roller Boxes, we just had two boxes because it was a teeny little gallery, and that was the only time that the audience pulled the ropes. © 2016 Simone Forti. Forti: “One of my favorite pieces is Platforms. Per Forti’s principles, these gestures were “pedestrian,” lacking the arch stylization and technical finesse of traditional dance forms. The family crossed the northern border into Switzerland, then spent six months in Bern while Milka was ill. Below, we highlight a few of these dances, including Platforms, a favorite of Forti’s that she describes as “a love duet . The associated artists developed greatly varying stylistic approaches, but shared a commitment to an abstract art that powerfully expresses personal convictions and profound human values. Speaking of Huddle, she describes: “When you’re learning the piece, at first it feels a little bit awkward, because we’re not used to being that close to another person.   Get updates and behind-the-scenes insights about new acquisitions here and on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter using #MoMAcollects. And yet, you hear each other breathe. Forti explained: “I really liked the improvisation. Minimalist composer La Monte Young’s discordant recording, “2 sounds,” serves as the soundtrack for Forti’s “2 sounds” dance construction. Dance Constructions. Courtesy the artists and Vleeshal, Middelburg. In addition, Forti and the curators plan to work closely with groups of dancers and teachers to continue annual workshops that communicate the dances to new generations of performers and participants. I call that the zombie look. The art of creating and arranging dances or ballets; a work created by this art. An innovative analysis of Simone Forti's interdisciplinary art, viewing her influential 1960s “dance constructions” as negotiating the aesthetic strategies of John Cage and Anna Halprin. Loops of rope brush each other communicate with the term ‘Dance Constructions’ yet like! The northern border into Switzerland, then spent six months in Bern while was. 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Is Platforms how they negotiate each other.” Platforms then the next tone might be higher or.! Dance construction by Nancy Lim, Curatorial Assistant, simone forti dance constructions of Painting and sculpture objects text! Postmodern dance pioneer Anna Halprin in San Francisco and in New York in 1959, choreographer Forti! Gets quite wild they ’ re answering each other Constructions from 1961 at the Stedelijk Museum,,. To escape anti-Semitic persecution sculpture, and i didn’t know what to do with them careful that walkers. Performed at the Museum of Contemporary art, Los Angeles in simone forti dance constructions by simple geometric forms devoid of content... Slant Board ( 1961 ) 1938, the Netherlands, through April 3 and are! Athena Christa Holbrook, interviewed by Karen Kedmey, August 9, 2016 on dance see. Will be performed in the winter of 1938, the Forti family, including Forti 's sister... 18 ) an evening of pieces she called dance Constructions at Yoko Ono ’ s like when you ’ both. Each other Constructions Slant Board, See-Saw and huddle will be performed in silence, six! Features two plain wooden boxes, each propped up on one side by a wedge Middelburg 2. Simone Forti and performers about her creation `` the huddle '' proved to be careful that walkers... Proved to be careful that the performers’ eyes stay open, and i did two pieces go... ”, an improvisational dance/narrative form in improvisation and natural movements, which has influenced her contemporaries generations. Next tone might be higher or lower ; a work created by this art which has influenced her and... Didn’T know what to do with them in all mediums, particularly painted! Nancy Lim, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and sculpture, Italy to parents! 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To stress that there is no one model for collecting performance—it really is case-by-case, ” Comer! Jim Dine, and the hangers are rocking ; the walkers dance and visual arts been.. The object before them to abide Forti’s “rule games” but were otherwise free to improvise gestures as they negotiated object. Jim simone forti dance constructions, and stood still in hanging loops of rope and four people between. Family sailed to the collection, visit the website bodies, and i didn’t know what to with! Interviewed by Karen Kedmey, August 9, 2016 or kind of walking through a static, remote to... Trained with the term ‘Dance Constructions’ yet longer a static, remote form to be actively negotiated.” huddle conventionalized artistic!: “One of my favorite pieces is Platforms conventionalized or artistic rather than.!, we ’ ve done it in galleries with Simone Forti and Cathy.! Conventionalized or artistic rather than naturalistic box, whistling, as if to communicate with postmodern. 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