Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Kenneth Rinker [sound recording].

Author

Rinker, Kenneth.

Publication

2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Friedman, Jeff, 1956-

Description

5 v. (178 l.); 30 cm.

Summary

• Sept. 4, 2001; p. 1-18 [corresponds to cassette 1, side A]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about his interest in history and his recognition that it is a theme in his choreography; making his work Generation pieces at Jacob's Pillow [Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, in Lee, Mass.]; his enjoyment of the process of creating work in the studio with Twyla Tharp; her work Deuce coupe, performed in collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet, as a landmark in his achievement as a dancer.
• Sept. 4, 2001; p. 18-36 [corresponds to cassette 1, side B]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman further about Deuce coupe; his work Cantata, the second (following his work 42nd variations) of a trilogy for his company, Kenneth Rinker Dance Company; his emotional state during rehearsals for Cantata; the influence of his teacher Ethel Butler.
• Sept. 4, 2001; p. 37-51 [corresponds to cassette 2, side A; side B was intentionally left blank]. Kenneth Rinker continues to speak with Jeff Friedman about Ethel Butler, who danced in Martha Graham's company in the 1930s; her transmission of the early Graham style; his awareness of American history as he grew up in Washington D.C.; his boyhood hobby of building models to scale of Washington, D.C., and New York City; how this mode of spatial representation later influenced his dancing; the simultaneous experience of renovating a house in Brooklyn, N.Y., and making his dance work 42nd variations.
• Sept. 5, 2001; p. 51-66 [corresponds to cassette 3, side A]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about his hearing music during his childhood, but lacking formal music training; learning the layers of music through dancing in Tharp's works; discusses The Bach duet, a work by Tharp for Rinker and Rose Marie Wright; meeting his life partner Sergio Cervetti, who is a musician, while both were still students; moving to New York City after a year in Berlin, Germany; what he felt about taking dance class in the studios of Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Charles Weidman; doing one performance with Twyla Tharp in 1970; the invitation to work with her company.
• Sept. 5, 2001; p. 67-84 [corresponds to cassette 3, side B]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about his feeling that in Tharp's studio he found the place where he belonged as a dancer; his memories of performing in autumn 1971 with her company in Paris and the invitation to continue working with the group; his gradual decision after nearly ten years to leave and make his own choreography; the structure of his work titled 42nd variations; his collaborations with Sergio Cervetti as a musician.
• Sept. 5, 2001; p. 84-101 [corresponds to cassette 4, side A]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about working with Twyla Tharp and her dancers at a time when they were all close to the same age; Rinker as the first man in the group; his disagreement with the theory that Tharp's early work was proto-feminist in intention; the creation of Tharp's work The Bix pieces; Rinker's concept of dance as consisting of dots (specific poses) and lines (connecting movement) and his attraction to the lines, to pure motion.
• Sept. 5, 2001; p. 102-119 [corresponds to cassette 4, side B]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about teaching in workshops the movement sequences, first for the feet, and then for the arms, of Tharp's work The fugue, where the challenge of combining them reveals the student's thought process; finding out about oneself as a dancer by solving extreme movement problems; the structure of Tharp's work Sue's leg.
• Sept. 6, 2001; p. 119-134 [corresponds to cassette 5, side A]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about his childhood and family background; his pleasure in theatrical performances that he saw as a teenager in Washington, D.C.; enrollment in the dance program at University of Maryland; his parents' unspoken approval; how Tharp used his characteristics in the dances; speaks about Kermit Love, how he helped Tharp's early work, and his advice to Rinker.
• Sept. 6, 2001; p. 135-154 [corresponds to cassette 5, side B]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about good luck as a factor in a career; his two unhappy experiences with Broadway shows; working in the films Hair, Places in the heart, and Murphy's romance; the relationship of dancing and making a living; his two weeks of rehearsal in the musical revue Jerome Robbins' Broadway and the rueful decision to leave the show; Rinker's Brooklyn house and the neighborhood.
• Sept. 6, 2001; p. 154-170 [corresponds to cassette 6, side A]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about the Brooklyn brownstone he and Sergio Cervetti renovated and where they lived 24 years; the decision to sell the house; brief consideration of Uruguay as a place to move; why they chose to settle in Doylestown, Penn.; Rinker speaks about transitions and an experience in his life that taught him about letting go; writing as his current form of creative activity.
• Sept. 6, 2001; p. 171-178 [corresponds to cassette 6, side B]. Kenneth Rinker speaks with Jeff Friedman about being hit by a truck when he was a child; how the physical sensation of a particular dance studio affected him; his affection for a piece of antique furniture which he inherited; the characters of his father, mother, and sister.

Donor/Sponsor

Oral history archive.

Subject

• Rinker, Kenneth
• Tharp, Twyla
• Cervetti, Sergio
• Butler, Ethel
• Twyla Tharp and Dancers
• Kenneth Rinker Dance Company
• Generation pieces: 168 (Choreographic work : Rinker, K)
• Forty second/42nd variations (Choreographic work : Rinker)
• Cantata #'84: Behind the moon, beyond the rain (Choreographic work : Rinker)
• Deuce coupe (Choreographic work : Tharp)
• Bach duet (Choreographic work : Tharp)
• Bix pieces (Choreographic work : Tharp)

Note

• Interview with Kenneth Rinker conducted by Jeff Friedman in Doylestown, Penn., on Sept, 4, 5, and 6, 2001.

Access (note)

• Permission of interviewee required.
• Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Source (note)

• Jeff Friedman.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-2570 [transcript]

OCLC

232605683

Author

Rinker, Kenneth. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Kenneth Rinker [sound recording].

Imprint

2001.

Access

Permission of interviewee required.

Local Note

The summary of contents is organized based on the pagination of the transcript with the corresponding audio material noted. The transcript contains a portion of the interview not contained in the audio cassettes held by the Library, specifically, side B of cassette 4. Neither the original audio recording nor the transcript of this interview were created by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded Moving Image holds a videocassette recording of this interview.

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Local Subject

Audiotapes -- Friedman, J.

Audiotapes -- Rinker, K.

Added Author

Friedman, Jeff, 1956- Interviewer

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-2570 [transcript]