Simone Forti: Handbook in Motion (1974)

An account of an ongoing personal discourse and its manifestations in dance. Simone Forti is a dancer who has always forged her own path. She arrived in New York in the early 60’s from California. She brought with her a series of pieces that proved to be of serious influence on the development of “post modern” dance and sculpture in years to come. Her “dance-constructions” were based on a concern with bodies in action, the movement not being stylized or presented for its visual line but rather as a physical fact. The artist traces the development of her work intuitively rather than chronologically, including narratives about a time of participation in the drug culture that sheds light on the changes in her dancing. The book includes drawings, “dance reports” (short descriptions of events whose movement made a deep impression on the author’s memory), and documentary materials such as scores, descriptions, and photographic records of performances. Covers work from 1959 – 1973.

First published in 1974
Third edition, 1988
Publisher The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada; with New York University Press, New York
Editor Kasper Koenig
ISBN 0937645052
152 pages

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