Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Simone Forti [sound recording]

Author

Forti, Simone.

Publication

1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Sunshine, Louise
• DHCA

Description

4 sound cassettes (4 hr., 40 min.) +

Summary

• Cassette 1. Recorded May 8, 1994. Ms. Forti discusses her family background and her starting to dance because of flat feet; studying modern dance in high school; her early explorations of improvisation; seeing experimental films at the Cocteau Theatre in Los Angeles; her interest in biology and fine arts; folk dance and folk singing; artist Robert Morris; studying with Welland Lathrop and Anna Halprin; A.A. Leath; teaching children; improvisational structures explored with Halprin; dancer John Graham and voice exercises from theater; defining improvisation; analysis of her own early improvisational process and her ideas about dance and painting.
• Cassette 2. Ms. Forti discusses her break from Halprin; moving to New York and taking Graham classes; exploring composition; classes in Cunningham technique; Robert Dunn's composition classes; Steve Paxton; Yvonne Rainer; Trisha Brown; Lucinda Childs; her interest in process-oriented work; nature; her choreography Huddle; the influence of Bob Morris; her creative process; her choreographies Slant board and Hangars (1961); La Monte Young; her choreography See-Saw (1960); the personal and artistic influence of filmmaker Robert Whitman; her choreography Fallers (1968); the nine evening programs of Experiments in art and technology; and performing in front of her family.
• Cassette 3. Recorded June 27, 1994. Ms. Forti discusses Halprin and the influence of her aesthetics and kinesthetic awareness; improvisation as performance; different approaches to improvisation; the audience's role in improvisation; balancing internal and external awareness in performance; dance narratives or what she calls Animations [see: News animations]; Lauri Nagel; K.J. Holmes; and David Zambrano.
• Cassette 4. Recorded June 27, 1994. Ms. Forti describes a piece she did with David Zambrano, which was inspired by the Vermont woods.

Alternative Title

• Dance Audio Archive.
• Dance Oral History Project.

Subjects

• Lathrop, Welland
• Halprin, Anna
• Nagel, Lauri
• Modern dance > Technique > Cunningham
• Improvisation in dance
• Young, La Monte
• Rainer, Yvonne, 1934-
• Slant board (Choreographic work : Forti)
• Huddle (Choreographic work : Forti)
• News animations (Choreographic work : Forti)
• Graham, John
• Brown, Trisha, 1936-2017
• Holmes, K. J
• Childs, Lucinda
• Paxton, Steve
• Leath, A. A
• Whitman, Robert, 1935-
• Zambrano, David
• Dunn, Robert Ellis
• Morris, Robert, 1931-2018

Note

• Interviewed by Louise Sunshine at Ms. Forti's studio in New York City. A subsequent interview, conducted by K.J. Holmes on February 13, 2018, can be found in the Library's catalog under the title: Interview with Simone Forti, 2018 (transcript: *MGZMT 3-3467).
• For transcript, see *MGZMT 3-1844.

Access (note)

• Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-1844 [transcript]

OCLC

NYPY96-R8

Author

Forti, Simone. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Simone Forti [sound recording]

Imprint

1994.

Local Note

Preservation master cassette in: *MGZTCO 3-1844.

Archival transcript in: *MGZMTO 3-1844.

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Added Author

Sunshine, Louise, interviewer.

DHCA

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-1844 [transcript]

*MGZTC 3-1844 [sound cassettes]