We all looked into one another's faces as

previously I had looked only into the face of

someone I was falling in love with. [...] And now

we were all gazing with absolute openness, with

absolute multidirectional vulnerability to

imprinting, with absolute lack of fear of uniting.



Simone Forti, Handbook in Motion









Friday 18 June

Simone Forti and performers

a powdered yet centered, bodily night

Moorat Raphael Cultural Centre

Palazzo Zenobio,

Grand Hall of Mirrors, piano nobile and gardens

Dorsoduro 2597 – Venice

9.30 pm





Tuesday 22 June

Simone Forti

body, mind, world: a reading

Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito

Dorsoduro 2826 – 30123 Venice

6.00 pm



curated by Chiara Vecchiarelli







On 18 and 22 June, Simone Forti will present two events based on some of her

groundbreaking performances, Accompaniment for La Monte's 2 sounds and La

Monte’s 2 sounds, a solo improvisational Logomotion, and a reading of a selection of

writings and imaginary dialogues partially excerpted from her book Oh Tongue! and

partially unpublished.

According to the logic of an itinerant encounter, the Dance Constructions by Simone

Forti will take place on Friday 18 June at the Armenian Centre Moorat Raphael in

Venice. Those early pieces, which frame special situations for non-stylistic

movements, were centrally influential both to the minimalist movement in the art

community and to new dance which was searching for a more natural and direct

approach to the body.

While the bodily magma of Huddle and the still movement of Slant Board will generate

the space of the Grand Hall of Mirrors, Rollers will go through the ground floor and

Platforms will whisper aside, Simone will accompany in the exterior the intemperate

and unmediated life of the two sounds of La Monte Young.

As a natural development of the thought order generated by the mutable

configurations of bodies, in the late afternoon of Tuesday 22 June, Simone Forti will

present a selection of her writings at Palazzetto Tito in Venice.

The event is organised by Moorat Raphael Cultural Centre at Palazzo Zenobio under

the aegis of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and Iuav University, Venice, and is

collateral to the seminar T_day, dance we must! conducted by Simone Forti at CTR –

Centro Teatrale di Ricerca di Venezia from 16 to 20 June, realized in collaboration with

TARS – Ca’ Foscari University, Venice.



A dancer, choreographer, artist and writer, Simone Forti was trained by the 20th century

sharpest dancers. She was a member of the memorable Judson Dance Theater, impressed

new gestures (the most common, in fact) on the dancing body, and dragged unseen body

language into the heart of language itself.

She moved to San Francisco in 1956 with her husband Robert Morris, with whom she shared

the feeling of gravity. At the age of 21 she started to dance with Anna Halprin. It is while

training with Halprin that Forti understood how every movement, be it human or of a leaf,

possesses a proper quality with which she established a relationship based on kinaesthetic

awareness: a form of bodily sympathy in which each gesture is able to echo the constellation

of elements playing in the scene and generate contingently the dance space.

In 1960 Forti started to study, in New York, with Marta Graham and Merce Cunningham;

however, it was only when she met musician and choreographer Robert Dunn, who

introduced dancers to the study of Cage’s scores, that she understood Cage’s idea of a sharp

keeping in tune with undetermined systems. In this period upon the invitation of Robert

Whitman, Forti presented her first performances at the Reuben Gallery which only one year

later would host Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts. In the same year, 1961, Forti took

part in the programme by her friend and composer La Monte Young at Yoko Ono’s studio in

Chambers Street. Here she presented five Dance Constructions: Huddle, Slant Board,

Platforms, Rollers e See-Saw, the instructions for the realisation of two of which are included

in 1963 in the collection of scores An Anthology of Chance Operations, edited by La Monte

Young. Immersed in the artistic scene of the 1960s, it is in 1966 that Forti partakes to the

performance Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg at the Armory in New York, singing an

Italian love song while Rauschenberg moved around the sack from which the melody

proceeded.

Together with the ideator of contact improvisation Steve Paxton, and with Meredith Monk,

Lucinda Childs, Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown, in 1962 Forti presented the class work of

Dunn’s course at the Judson Memorial Church in New York. With the Judson Dance Theater

a new way of intending gesture had appeared in the world of performative art. For that

moment on and with a new intensity the idea of improvisation will echo as a germination

around a multiplicity of centres of irradiation. Around the idea of the vibrant keeping of a

stable centre within bodily and sound waves which touch lightly upon it, a collaboration

between Forti and musician Charlemagne Palestine started. At the base of Forti's movements

is the intelligence of a body whose centre moves incessantly vibrating as the flame of a

candle exposed to the changing tune of the world, be it animated or inanimate, which

constitutes her environment.

If Forti studies the animal gesture as an ethologist to reveal the dynamics of its circular

propagation and as a musician she translates into sound the common and individual form of

human face, it is like a world imitator that within the common structure, by dancing or

speaking, she finds of necessity the most proper gesture.

_______________



Simone Forti presenterà a Venezia, nelle sere del 18 e 22 giugno, due serate di

performance dedicate l'una ad alcune tra le sue storiche Dance Costructions - Huddle,

Slant Board, Platforms, Rollers - ad Accompaniment for La Monte's 2 sounds and La

Monte’s 2 sound e a un'improvvisazione di corpo e parola dal nome di Logomotion,

l'altra al reading di una selezione di scritti e dialoghi immaginari in parte tratti dalla

pubblicazione Oh Tongue!, in parte inediti.

Nella logica di un incontro itinerante, le Dance Constructions di Simone Forti avranno

luogo venerdì 18 giugno presso la sede del Centro Armeno Moorat Raphael a Venezia.

Influenti sia nel minimalismo in arte che nella nuova danza che andava cercando un

rapporto più diretto con il corpo, le Dance Constructions

Mentre il magma corporeo di Huddle e il fermo movimento di Slant Board genereranno

lo spazio della grande sala degli specchi, Rollers percorrerà il piano inferiore e

Platforms sussurrerà in disparte, Simone accompagnerà in esterno la vita intemperata

e priva di mediazioni dei due suoni di la Monte Young.

Come un naturale sviluppo dell'ordine di pensieri generato dalle mutevoli

configurazioni dei corpi, nel tardo pomeriggio di martedì 22 giugno, Simone Forti

presenterà presso Palazzetto Tito a Venezia una selezione dei propri scritti.

L’evento, che affianca il seminario T_day, dance we must! condotto da Simone Forti

presso CTR – Centro Teatrale di Ricerca di Venezia realizzato in collaborazione co

TARS – Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia dal 16 al 20 di giugno, è organizzato dal

Centro Culturale Moorat Raphael di Palazzo Zenobio e patrocinato da Fondazione

Bevilacqua La Masa e Università Iuav di Venezia.



Danzatrice coreografa, artista e scrittrice, Simone Forti si è formata con i più acuti danzatori

del Novecento, ha fatto parte dello storico Judson Dance Theater, segnato di nuovi gesti – i

più comuni - il corpo della danza, portato un’inedita gestualità sin nel cuore del linguaggio.

Trasferitasi a San Francisco nel 1956 con il marito Robert Morris, con il quale condivide il

sentimento della gravità, all'età di 21 anni inizia a danzare con Anna Halprin. Comprende con

Halprin come ogni movimento, sia esso di un uomo o di una foglia, possieda una qualità

propria con la quale si tratta di entrare in un rapporto di consapevolezza cinestesica: una

forma di simpatia corporea nella quale ciascun gesto si fa capace di entrare in risonanza con

la costellazione degli elementi in gioco e genera, in maniera contingente, lo spazio della

danza.

Trasferitasi a New York, nel 1960 Forti inizia a studiare con Marta Graham e Merce

Cunningham, ma è l'incontro con il musicista e coreografo Robert Dunn, che è stato allievo

del compositore John Cage e ne fa studiare gli spartiti ai danzatori, a veicolare in Forti l'idea

cageana di un preciso tenersi in rapporto con sistemi indeterminati. È in questo periodo che,

su invito di Robert Whitman, Forti presenta le sue prime performance presso la stessa

Reuben Gallery che solo un anno dopo ospiterà gli 18 Happenings in 6 Parts di Allan Kaprow.

Lo stesso anno – il 1961 – in cui Forti partecipa al programma curato dal compositore e

amico La Monte Young presso lo studio di Yoko Ono in Chambers Street. Qui presenta

cinque Dance Constructions: Huddle, Slant Board, Platforms, Rollers e See-Saw, le istruzioni

per la realizzazione di due delle quali vengono incluse, nel 1963, nella storica raccolta di

spartiti An Anthology of Chance Operations, curata da La Monte Young. Immersa nella scena

artistica degli anni Sessanta, è nel 1966 che Forti partecipa alla performance Open Score di

Robert Rauschenberg presso l'Armory di New York, cantando una canzone d'amore italiana

mentre Rauschenberg sposta nello spazio il sacco dal quale procede la melodia.

Insieme all'ideatore della contact improvisatio Steve Paxton, a Meredith Monk, Lucinda

Childs, Yvonne Rainer e Trisha Brown, nel 1962 Forti presenta i lavori della classe di Dunn

presso la Juson Memorial Church di New York. Con il Judson Dance Theater una maniera

nuova di intendere il gesto si è affacciata nel mondo delle arti performative. Da qui in poi, e

con una nuova intensità, risuonerà l'idea di improvvisazione come di un germinare intorno a

una pluralità di centri di irraggiamento. È intorno all’idea della tenuta vibrante di un centro

stabile ma intento alle correnti corporee e sonore che lo lambiscono, che si animerà più

avanti la collaborazione tra Forti e il musicista Charlemagne Palestine. Alla base del

movimento sta infatti per Forti l'intelligenza di un corpo il cui centro si sposta

incessantemente, vibrando come la fiamma di una candela esposta all'accordo cangiante del

mondo - animato o inanimato - che costituisce il suo ambiente.

Se come un etologo Forti studia il gesto animale per rilevarne le dinamiche di propagazione

circolare del gesto e, musicista, traduce in suoni le linee comuni e singolari del volto umano,

è come un imitatore di mondo che nella struttura comune, danzando o parlando, trova il gesto

più proprio.



Simone Forti is a dancer/choreographer/writer. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1935, she emigrated to the United States with her family in 1939. In 1955 she began dancing in the San Francisco Bay area with Anna Halprin, who was pioneering work in dance improvisation. After four years of studying and performing with Halprin, Simone moved to New York City. There she studied composition at the Merce Cunningham Studio with musicologist/dance educator Robert Dunn, who was introducing dancers to the work of John Cage. In these classes she met and began her association with choreographers like Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton. In the spring of 1961, she presented a full evening of what she called Dance-Constructions, at Yoko Ono’s loft studio. This seminal event in contemporary dance was influential to fellow choreographers who went on to form the Judson Dance Theatre. From these early pieces through her animal movement studies, news animations and land portraits, Forti has created idioms for exploring natural forms and behaviors. Over the past several years she has been developing Logomotion, an improvisational dance narrative form wherein movement and language spontaneously weave together.

The first edition of Forti’s book, Oh, Tongue was published in Los Angeles by Beyond Baroque Books in 2003, and was republished in French translation by Editions Al Dante, Limoge, France, together with the Geneva University of Art and Design. Oh, Tongue is a varied collection of writings, including experimental essays, transcripts of Logomotion improvisations, an imaginary political/historical conversation with her father, poetry, articles about dance and a postscript by the poet Jackson Mac Low. Now in a new expanded edition, Oh Tongue (Beyond Baroque Books 2010) includes some of Forti’s new writings and drawings, and an afterward by Fred Dewey, which is an extensive relfection on and contextualization of Simone’s work. Forti’s first book, Handbook in Motion: an account of an ongoing personal discourse and its manifestations in dance, was originally published in 1974 by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design as part of their Source Materials of the Contemporary Art series. It was re-published in French Translation in 2000 by Contredanse as an edition of their Belgian dance journal Nouvelles de Danse. An article by Simone appears in Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader (Wesleyan Press, 1993).

Simone Forti has been an adjunct professor at UCLA since 1997. In 2004 she received the Los Angeles Dance Resource Center’s “Lester Horton Award” for lifetime achievement and, in 2005, Forti was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has performed and taught extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and internationally, and her work has been shown at venues ranging from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Seibu Theatre, Tokyo, Galleria L’Attico, Rome, The Kitchen, New York, Highways, Los Angeles, REDCAT and the MoCA Geffen Contemporary, also in Los Angeles. In 2000, The Baryshnikov Productions White Oak Company featured some of Simone’s early works as part of PASTForward, a program of Judson Church choreographers. Forti’s work is included in the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.