Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer get together at Saint Mark's Church. “It is better to have loved and lost than to have put linoleum on your living room floor.” Yvonne Rainer read that aloud during her 2016 The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project— Altered Annually. And she read it again from one of the sheets of paper taped to the pillars in Saint Mark’s Church during Danspace … [Read more...]
Portaging the ’60s into 2012
Here’s how Simone Forti laid out her 1961 From Instructions: “One man is told that he must lie on the floor during the entire piece. Another is told that he must tie the first man to the wall.” (I like picturing the possibilities inherent in this structured improvisation.) In her wonderful 1974 book, Handbook in Motion, Forti mentions that the room in which From Instructions was first performed … [Read more...]