Anna Halprin
Encyclopedia
Anna Halprin helped pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance
and referred to herself as the breaker of modern dance. Halprin, along with her contemporaries such as Trisha Brown
, Simone Forti
, Yvonne Rainer
, John Cage
, and Robert Morris
, collaborated and built a community based around the fundamentals of post-modern dance. In 1950s, she established the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop to give artists like her a place to practice their art. Being able to freely explore the capabilities of her own body, she created a systematic way of moving using kinesthetic awareness. Many of her works since have been based on scores, including Planetary Dance, 1987, and Myths in the 1960s which gave a score to the audience, making them performers as well.
Halprin was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1972. In order to understand her ailment, she documented her own experiences and compiled the information to make her own healing process called The Five Stages of Healing. In 1981, she applied The Five Stages of Healing to her community and developed large community pieces. Halprin stated "I believe if more of us could contact the natural world in a directly experiential way, this would alter the way we treat our environment, ourselves, and one another." Halprin has written books including: Movement Rituals, Moving Toward Life: Five Decades of Transformational Dance and Dance as a Healing Art. She currently does research in connection with the Tamalpa Institute, based in Marin County, California
, which she founded with her daughter, Daria Halprin
, in 1978.
She was the co-creator with her husband, the late landscape architect
Lawrence Halprin
, of the RSVP Cycles
, a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines. A new documentary film
, Breath Made Visible
directed by Ruedi Gerber, will premiere in April 2010.
"Halprin continues to be sought after as a teacher because of her ability to lead dancers gently into new territory for their own choreographic invention." (Dance Magazine: McFadden Performing Arts Media, 2004.) 78.
and Isadora Duncan
. In 1938, she attended University of Wisconsin under the direction of one of her lifelong mentors Margaret H'Doubler
. H’Doubler emphasized the importance of personal creativity and highly encouraged the study of anatomy in order obtain the most effective ways of moving. Halprin abandoned the stylized forms of modern technique to create her own way of reproducing the art of everyday life. Merce Cunningham
shared the same need to reject the emotional expressiveness of modern dance. However, instead of using chance as a way to make movement like Cunningham did, Halprin turned to improvisation to investigate ways in which individuals could make a community. Because of H'Doubler, Halprin understood the conception of where invention in dance begins, and from this she could help form the basis of the next generation's ideas of postmodern dance. Her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin
, whom she met in college, was also interested in the collaborative process.
, Lawrence Halprin’s work called him to stay in San Francisco permanently. Anna Halprin wrote in a letter about her new journey saying she was ready “… to live a resourceful life with a connection to the soil and to the common pulse of ordinary people.” In order to ease the transition, Lawrence built wife a deck outside of their home for her to dance upon. Later this deck became a place of learning for herself, her children, and her students. After performing in New York at the ANTA Theater in 1955, Halprin was disappointed after watching a Martha Graham group and one of Doris Humprey's. She thought everyone looked too similar to Graham and Humphrey and that it stifled and room for creativity. Thus, Halprin founded the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop in 1959 along with several others, including dancers Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti, and artists John Cage and Robert Morris. The purpose of this organization was to give her and others the opportunity to delve more into more explorative forms of dance and move away from the technical constraints of modern dance. During the span of twenty years, she developed a working process that gave people the liberty to move freely with emotion and with a feeling a community. This technique came to be called human potential growth; the aim was to maintain the link between non-verbal behavior and examining the use of language and physical expression. In addition to the workshop, Halprin continued to perform, dancing about "real life" in pieces such as "Apartment 6" with fellow dancers, John Graham and AA Leath.
, which breaks down the creative process with the use of scores. It stands for Resources, Scores, Valuaction and Performance. She says, “I wanted to create something for a group of people to do in which they’re given the opportunity to explore the theme and find out what’s real for them…” It was her hope that through formalized scores such as the "Planetary Dance," (a formation of 3 circles, going in different directions, in which you're told to run, walk, or stand still)the process of creativity would be sparked in both dancers and non dancers. Her training programs, which take can take up to a year, allowed participants to concentrate on the movement of each body part "taking the body apart" and then later on in the program, reassembling it to move as a whole.
Postmodern dance
Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....
and referred to herself as the breaker of modern dance. Halprin, along with her contemporaries such as Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
, Simone Forti
Simone Forti
Simone Forti , a postmodern American choreographer and musician, was born in Italy but moved to the United States at a young age. Throughout her career she became known for a style of dancing and choreography that was largely based on basic everyday movements, such as games and children's...
, Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, and Robert Morris
Robert Morris (artist)
Robert Morris is an American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent theorists of Minimalism along with Donald Judd but he has also made important contributions to the development of performance art, land art, the Process Art movement and installation...
, collaborated and built a community based around the fundamentals of post-modern dance. In 1950s, she established the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop to give artists like her a place to practice their art. Being able to freely explore the capabilities of her own body, she created a systematic way of moving using kinesthetic awareness. Many of her works since have been based on scores, including Planetary Dance, 1987, and Myths in the 1960s which gave a score to the audience, making them performers as well.
Halprin was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1972. In order to understand her ailment, she documented her own experiences and compiled the information to make her own healing process called The Five Stages of Healing. In 1981, she applied The Five Stages of Healing to her community and developed large community pieces. Halprin stated "I believe if more of us could contact the natural world in a directly experiential way, this would alter the way we treat our environment, ourselves, and one another." Halprin has written books including: Movement Rituals, Moving Toward Life: Five Decades of Transformational Dance and Dance as a Healing Art. She currently does research in connection with the Tamalpa Institute, based in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, which she founded with her daughter, Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin
Daria Halprin is an American psychologist, author, dancer, and former actress known primarily for her naturalistic performances in three films of the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life:...
, in 1978.
She was the co-creator with her husband, the late landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
Lawrence Halprin
Lawrence Halprin
Lawrence Halprin was an influential American landscape architect, designer and teacher.Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William...
, of the RSVP Cycles
RSVP Cycles
RSVP cycles is a system of creatively methodology for collaboration. It was developed by Anna Halprin, an American dancer, and her husband, the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.The title refers to its four components:...
, a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines. A new documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, Breath Made Visible
Breath Made Visible
Breath Made Visible is a 2009 documentary film about modern dance legend Anna Halprin. It is produced and directed by filmmaker Ruedi Gerber. The film premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival where it received the Audience Award Certificate of Excellence and at the Locarno Film Festival in...
directed by Ruedi Gerber, will premiere in April 2010.
"Halprin continues to be sought after as a teacher because of her ability to lead dancers gently into new territory for their own choreographic invention." (Dance Magazine: McFadden Performing Arts Media, 2004.) 78.
Early years
From a very early age Anna Halprin was exposed to dance due to her grandfather's involvement in religious dancing. At 4 years old, Halprin's mother enrolled her in ballet class to satisfy young Anna's urge to dance. Quickly realizing that the structured environment was no place for a mind and soul as creative as Halprin's, her mother withdrew her from the class and put her into a class that was more focused on movement. At the age of 15, Anna Halprin began studying the techniques of Ruth St. DenisRuth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...
and Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
. In 1938, she attended University of Wisconsin under the direction of one of her lifelong mentors Margaret H'Doubler
Margaret H'Doubler
Margaret Newell H’Doubler created the first dance major at the University of Wisconsin. Her dance pedagogy was a blend of expressing emotions and scientific description...
. H’Doubler emphasized the importance of personal creativity and highly encouraged the study of anatomy in order obtain the most effective ways of moving. Halprin abandoned the stylized forms of modern technique to create her own way of reproducing the art of everyday life. Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
shared the same need to reject the emotional expressiveness of modern dance. However, instead of using chance as a way to make movement like Cunningham did, Halprin turned to improvisation to investigate ways in which individuals could make a community. Because of H'Doubler, Halprin understood the conception of where invention in dance begins, and from this she could help form the basis of the next generation's ideas of postmodern dance. Her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin
Lawrence Halprin
Lawrence Halprin was an influential American landscape architect, designer and teacher.Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William...
, whom she met in college, was also interested in the collaborative process.
San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Lawrence Halprin’s work called him to stay in San Francisco permanently. Anna Halprin wrote in a letter about her new journey saying she was ready “… to live a resourceful life with a connection to the soil and to the common pulse of ordinary people.” In order to ease the transition, Lawrence built wife a deck outside of their home for her to dance upon. Later this deck became a place of learning for herself, her children, and her students. After performing in New York at the ANTA Theater in 1955, Halprin was disappointed after watching a Martha Graham group and one of Doris Humprey's. She thought everyone looked too similar to Graham and Humphrey and that it stifled and room for creativity. Thus, Halprin founded the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop in 1959 along with several others, including dancers Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti, and artists John Cage and Robert Morris. The purpose of this organization was to give her and others the opportunity to delve more into more explorative forms of dance and move away from the technical constraints of modern dance. During the span of twenty years, she developed a working process that gave people the liberty to move freely with emotion and with a feeling a community. This technique came to be called human potential growth; the aim was to maintain the link between non-verbal behavior and examining the use of language and physical expression. In addition to the workshop, Halprin continued to perform, dancing about "real life" in pieces such as "Apartment 6" with fellow dancers, John Graham and AA Leath.
Kinesthetic awareness
Halprin's course of investigating her own way of creating movement called for understanding the limits of the body and the reactions the body makes when an initiation is made. In her own words she describes being aware of one’s kinesthetic sense “is your special sense for being aware of your own movement and empathizing with others." She compiled a group exercises named Movement Rituals that shape the way she and her students moved their bodies through space and time. Her movement patterns are based on the dynamic qualities such as swinging, falling, walking, running, crawls, leaps, and various ways of shifting weight. In the 1960s she developed the RSVP Cycles with her husband, Lawrence HalprinLawrence Halprin
Lawrence Halprin was an influential American landscape architect, designer and teacher.Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William...
, which breaks down the creative process with the use of scores. It stands for Resources, Scores, Valuaction and Performance. She says, “I wanted to create something for a group of people to do in which they’re given the opportunity to explore the theme and find out what’s real for them…” It was her hope that through formalized scores such as the "Planetary Dance," (a formation of 3 circles, going in different directions, in which you're told to run, walk, or stand still)the process of creativity would be sparked in both dancers and non dancers. Her training programs, which take can take up to a year, allowed participants to concentrate on the movement of each body part "taking the body apart" and then later on in the program, reassembling it to move as a whole.