Anna Halprin
Anna Halprin ( born July 13, 1920 in Wilmette, Illinois, nee Schuman ) is an American dancer and choreographer.
Life and work
Anna Halprin has been brought as a child by her mother with the dance in contact. During her school years in Winnetka, Illinois she was able to expand their interest further. Thus early it was clear to them that they would like to be a dancer. Halprin was based initially on Ruth St. Denis dance style ' and Isadora Duncan. After she took in 1938 to study at the University of Wisconsin -Madison under the direction of Margaret H'Doubler, it evolved away from the more personalized style and began their own artistic paths. The study concluded in 1942 with a B. A. Halprin from.
In college, she met the landscape architect Laurence Halprin, whom she still married during their studies in September 1940. After an engagement at a dance company on Broadway in New York, she went with her husband to California in 1945. There Halprin founded in 1955 the San Francisco Dancer's Workshop to give artists a like-minded home. Here Halprin designed and choreographed pieces that have been added to the controversial part. On a designed stage by her husband, which was built in the open air surrounded by nature, she collaborated with a variety of artists, including Min Tanaka and Merce Cunningham (dance, choreography ), John Cage and Terry Riley ( music) as well as visual artists and poets such as Richard Brautigan and Robert Morris. Student of her were among many other Meredith Monk, Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown, some of which have been at the San Francisco Dancer's Workshop and 1962 while the avant-garde ensemble Judson Dance Theater founded.
From the marriage of Halprin's Two daughters were born: Daria Halprin ( b. 1948 ) and Rana ( b. 1951 ). Together with her daughter, Daria, who also learned dance and teaches Halprin founded in 1978, the Tamalpa Institute. The independent school for dance and body experience based in California, is led today by her daughter, Halprin itself is there now a guest lecturer .. Since 2011 Tamalpa Germany, a German branch, which cooperates by its own account with the U.S. Institute and is supported by him.
Halprin began to develop different concepts of community ritual dances, including a danced annual spring ritual called Circle the Earth: A Planetary Dance for Peace.
From the late 1970s, Halprin dealt increasingly with ( self-) healing aspects of dancing. It is regarded as one of the pioneers of the expressive arts healing movement. She works in dance programs together with terminally ill patients and so tries to convey conviction that one's own dance movement can release healing powers. In two consecutive workshops only for men and for women Halprin works extensively with AIDS patients, other projects it has carried out with people with cancer. Increasingly, aging and the quest for beauty in old age was an issue in their work.
Halprin has written several books about her dance concepts and their approach to dance. To many of their songs and dance projects documentation on video and later DVD were released. At last came out in 2010 a documentary about Halprin by Ruedi Gerber called Breath Made Visible about them and their work.
Awards and other honors
Throughout her career, Halprin has received numerous awards and scholarships, including a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment several times for the Arts. The University of Madison, where she completed her BA gained, drew Halprin in 1994 with an honorary doctorate from. From Mikhail Gorbachev Halprin in 1995 was invited to speak at the State of the World Forum in California a speech. The American Dance Festival gave Halprin for their work as a teacher in 1996 initially with a chair, followed in 1997 the award of her life's work as a choreographer with the highly doped Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award. The Dance Heritage Coalition, a US-based association of libraries and collections on dance, Anna Halprin is one of the America's 100 Irreplaceable Dance Treasures.
Publications (selection)
- Movement ritual. 1975 ( English)
- Movement ritual. Tänzerische meditation exercises. Munich 1997
- Moving Toward Life. Five Decades of Transformational Dance. Edited by Rachel Kaplan. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown ( Connecticut ) 1995 ISBN 978-0-8195-6286-9 (English)
- Dance as a Healing Art Returning to Health with Movement of Imagery. Mendocino (CA ) 2000 German edition: dance, expression and healing. Way to health through exercise, images of life and creative approach to emotions. Synthesis, Essen 2000 ISBN 978-3-922026-49-5