Research Catalog

Interview with June Ekman

Title: Interview with June Ekman, 2018.
Author: Ekman, June
Publication: 2018

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Appointment Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	Audio	Supervised use	*MGZMT 3-3472	Performing Arts Research Collections - Dance

Details

Additional Authors

Senter, Shelley Sabina

Description

Online resource (5 streaming files [approximately 4 hr.]) : digital +

Summary

Streaming file 1, October 15, 2018 (approximately 6 minutes). June Ekman speaks with Shelley Senter about her family background including her birth on June 7, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois; her parents, originally from Lithuania, and her late sister.
Streaming file 2, October 15, 2018 (approximately 1 hour and 22 minutes). June Ekman continues to speak with Shelley Senter about her family background including the murder of her mother's family in Lithuania during World War II; her childhood, on the West Side of Chicago, including her vivid memory of dancing in a recital; her relationship with her sister; World War II and how it affected her and her family; more on her mother and sister; her exposure to the arts as a child, in particular her delight in movies; her interest in the (visual) arts, beginning when she was a teenager; (briefly) moving to New York City in 1953, as a babysitter for the dance teacher Bea [Beatrice] Stronstorff; meeting (her future husband) Paul Ekman; Paul Sanasardo's taking her to Martha Graham's studio [Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance]; reminiscences of Graham and her class including an anecdote about her comments on (Ekman's) cotton tights; leaving Graham's classes to take class (at the Henry Street Settlement House) with Alvin Nikolais, Murray Louis, and Phyllis Lamhut; teaching at nursery schools to support her dancing; her marriage, to Paul Ekman, in 1956 and their early married life; taking class with Merle Marsicano and dancing with her and a group of acquaintances (known as "Merle's Girls"); moving to San Francisco with her husband and attending Anna Halprin's workshops; Anna Halprin and her circle including Simone Forti (and later) Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer; Anna Halprin's studio as the "place to be" for modern dancers in California at the time; Anna Halprin's lyricism and her interest in exploring movement and improvisation; Meredith Monk, including an anecdote about her, Meredith Monk's fellow student from Sarah Lawrence College [Carla Bank], and an improvisation exercise; artists who influenced Anna Halprin including Hanya Holm; Anna Halprin's work Parades and changes including its use of nudity and an anecdote about the artist Bob [Robert] Morris; her awareness of the changes happening in the art and dance worlds at the time (early 1960s); reminiscences of the first major dance event presented at Judson Memorial Church [in 1962]; reasons she found the performances she saw so exciting [final approximate minute of the recording is unrelated conversation].
Streaming file 3, October 17, 2018 (approximately 55 minutes). June Ekman speaks with Shelley Senter about her having met Simone Forti and Trisha Brown prior to her move to San Francisco, in particular having first met Trisha Brown when Brown was 19 years old and already teaching; the break-up of her marriage after the move to San Francisco; more on Anna Halprin's summer workshops; her life after returning to New York City, in particular the artists she met and friends she made including Remy [Charlip]; her trip to Puerto Rico with Remy Charlip and Burt [Burton] Supree; reminiscences of performances at Judson Memorial Church at this time (early 1960s); her longtime home and studio, in the Flower District of New York City; (briefly) her political views and activities at the time; how she first heard about the Alexander technique; her prior awareness of somatics through her work with Merle Marsicano; meeting Yvonne Rainer; Elaine Summers including her role in bringing dancers together to perform each other's work at Judson Memorial Church; Carol Schneemann and her work Meat joy; other visual artists working with dancers at the time: Bob [Robert] Rauschenberg, Bob Morris, and Larry Poons including an anecdote about Poons; Jill Johnston (who wrote for The Village Voice) and the impact on the dance world of her reviews of the Judson Memorial Church performances; Valda Setterfield and how she inspired her husband, the choreographer David Gordon; Bob Rauschenberg and his choreographing a work to be performed on roller skates [Pelican]; the term "downtown dance"; the use of improvisation to create set pieces; brief reminiscences of various people and incidents from this time including a tragic fire at (artist) Alfred Leslie's studio; her impressions of Meredith Monk when she knew her in California and later in New York, in particular her singing; some other artists who had known each other from Sarah Lawrence [College] including Lucinda [Childs] and Bessie Schönberg; Ekman's and Shirley Kaplan's workshop (in the theater department) at Sarah Lawrence College, including an anecdote about Trisha Brown and Bessie Schönberg.
Streaming file 4, October 17, 2018 (approximately 28 minutes). June Ekman speaks with Shelley Senter about her own dancing, in particular when she realized that she no longer wanted to dance [for an audience]; her feelings about movement, including her experiences working with Alwin Nikolais, Merle Marsicano, and Elaine Summers; her friendship with Remy Charlip and Burt Supree including their purchase (with M.C. Richards) of Paulus Berensohn's house in rural Pennsylvania; life in the house, with Burton Supree, after Remy Charlip left for Paris to write a book (Fortunately, c. 1964), her and Larry Wilson's developing a chair based on a ball (the Sit-a-Round) including how the idea arose from her teaching Alexander technique, and their experience obtaining a patent for it; more on Jill Johnston and Judson Memorial Church including Ekman's awareness at the time of the novelty and impact (on the dance world) of the performances she saw there; her experience participating, with Shirley Kaplan and Elaine Summers at a workshop in Italy, including a performance by Laurie Anderson; her work with Shirley Kaplan and Painters Theater including its origins in the class they taught at Sarah Lawrence College; at this time starting to create her own work (with Shirley Kaplan, Remy Charlip, Burton Supree, and Joanne Vischer) and study the Alexander technique with Judy [Judith] Leibowitz; subsequently presenting her and Shirley Kaplan's work as her [graduate studies] project at Goddard College.
Streaming file 5, October 17, 2018 (approximately 1 hour and 6 minutes). June Ekman speaks with Shelley Senter about her first learning of Alexander technique from an article in the magazine Harper's Bazaar ["Exercise Without Exercise: Take Inches From Your Waist" by Edward Maisel, April 1967] and from Joanne Vischer; taking lessons in Alexander technique from Judy Leibowitz, in particular working to release her neck; the relationship between her study of Alexander technique and her psychotherapy sessions; how a cathartic experience in class with Judy Leibowitz led to her stopping her Alexander technique classes and focusing on her therapy sessions, with Dr. Sidney Handelman, a practitioner of Reichian therapy; her childhood trauma and the physical part of the Reichian therapy with Dr. Handelman; entering the American Center for Alexander Technique in 1976 to train as a teacher of Alexander technique; Debbie [Deborah] Caplan as one of her influential teachers; her own movement classes, which she taught for ten years in her studio including her use of balls; how having Ada Katz as a student led to Alex Katz's series of drawings entitled June Ekman's Class; her use of Alexander and Reichian techniques in her classes; reminiscences of her Alexander technique teacher and colleague Marjorie Barstow including how she influenced June Ekman's concept of movement; taking time off after graduating from the American Center for Alexander Technique (around 1979) when she traveled to Bali [Indonesia] with Remy Charlip and others and worked in London on a children's theater production; her development of her own teaching principles based on her experiences with Alexander technique and Reichian therapy, in particular with respect to childhood trauma and release; more on the development and patenting of the Sit-a-Round; her sessions with the breathing specialist [and former choir leader] Carl Stough and how she has incorporated what she learned in her own teaching; her teaching Alexander technique to singers at the Santa Fe Opera; other singers with whom she worked including Placido Domingo and Jon Bon Jovi; dancers who studied with her including Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Valda Setterfield; Lou Reed as a difficult student due to his anger; Jack Moore, in particular as a teacher of movement incorporating Alexander technique; (briefly) Mimi [Gross Grooms] and her help with the Sit-a-Round chair; her view on the use of Alexander technique to elicit emotional responses; choices she has made in her personal life; the richness of the artistic milieu she reentered upon her return to New York City as compared with that in California; her observation that the work of male artists in the dance world has been more valued than that of female artists; her feeling that women are making the more interesting work; the continuing relevance and originality of the work of Yvonne Rainer, [as evidenced by the performance of her The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there's nothing left to move? at the Museum of Modern Art] and that of other female artists including Elaine Summers, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, and Deborah Hay.

Alternative Title

Dance Oral History Project.
Dance Audio Archive.

Subject

Genre/Form

Sound recordings.
Oral histories.

Note

Interview with June Ekman conducted by Shelley Senter on October 15 and 17, 2018 in New York (N.Y.) for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center.
For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3472
As of March 2023, the audio recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The audio files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming on site only at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Sound quality is excellent.
Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.
Access onsite only at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y.

Funding (note)

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts (2018-2019) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3472

OCLC

1262657576

Author

Ekman, June, Interviewee.

Title

Interview with June Ekman, 2018.

Imprint

2018

Playing Time

040000

Type of Content

spoken word

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

audio

Type of Carrier

online resource

volume

Digital File Characteristics

audio file

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Access onsite only at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y.

Event

Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2018, October 15 and 17 New York (N.Y.).

Funding

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts (2018-2019) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Connect to:

Added Author

Senter, Shelley Sabina, interviewer.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3472

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