Oral history interview with Simone Forti, 2015

Biographical Note

Simone Forti was born in Florence, Italy. She is a renowned artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer, who studied with Anna Halprin, Martha Graham, and participated in Robert Dunn's workshop at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Her work draws from ordinary movement, animal studies, natural forms, and simple objects, rejecting traditional technique in order to challenge and expand the boundaries of dance. Forti's accolades include six fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for choreography in 2005. She is the author of Handbook in Motion (1974) and Oh, Tongue (2003)

Scope and Contents

Forti discusses her creative work during her marriage to Robert Morris, and performing with Robert Rauschenberg in Linoleum at the NOW Festival in Washington, D.C. in 1966. She also talks about her subsequent marriage and creative work with Robert Whitman, and her recollections of the work of her contemporaries from that era including Steve Paxton, Julie Martin, Deborah Hay, and Yvonne Rainer. She describes the influence of the Gutai group on her Dance Constructions and the influence of language and Dada in her work with Anna Halprin. Prior to the interview session, Forti challenged the interviewer to provide a creative structure for their session, and the discussion relies upon chance, as the topics of conversation are determined by the rolling of dice

Subjects

• Dadaism.
• Dancers--United States.
• Dunn, Robert Ellis.
• Forti, Simone--Interviews.
• Graham, Martha.
• Halprin, Anna.
• Interviews.
• Linoleum (Choreographic work : Rauschenberg).
• Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
• Morris, Robert, 1931-2018.
• Nicifero, Alessandra 1968- interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008.
• Whitman, Robert, 1935-.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2015