Composing while Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion

Glossary of People and Terms

note: Bold names and terms have entries in this glossary or in the Meet the Artists section. Additional contributors in the improvisation dance-making field. The twenty-six dancemakers included in this book are not an exhaustive list of those working in the field of dance improvisation, though many are major players in and have helped define it. Here is a further (nonexhaustive) list of improvisational dancemakers and performers who have made important contributions to the field by expanding its scope and/or through their definitive performance qualities. Their names are set in small caps. From the early generation of dancemakers: Yvonne Rainer, also wellknown for her experimental filmmaking, is a Judson choreographer whose piece Continuous Project Altered Daily (1970) transformed into Grand Union (1970–76), the well-known improvisational dance theater collaborative. Daniel Nagrin’s (1917–2008) collaborative Workgroup (1970s) explored emotional and psychological motivation for movement to create social and political commentary. Dianne McIntyre founded the troupe Sounds in Motion (1970s and 1980s), which pushed the limits of improvised dance vocabulary to encompass the rhythms of free jazz through study of existing African American dance forms. Pauline de Groot in Amsterdam established the new methods of experimental choreography and performance improvisation that she had been exposed to in New York City in the 1960s and carried them on, developing the basis for the New Dance scene that has since flourished there. Julyen Hamilton, now based in Spain, trained in London during the radical experimentation of the 1970s and has been a 187 Glossary of People and Terms proponent of performance improvisation since then, working with improvised text, light, and dance. An independent artist since 1970, Sara Shelton Mann danced with the Contact Improvisation–based Mangrove in San Francisco and started her own company, Contraband, for which she continues to create works often influenced by studies of Body-Mind Centering. Since the mid-1970s Andrew de L. Harwood (Montreal) has been involved in improvisational dance performance, first cofounding the dance troupe Fulcrum, a Contact Improvisation–based performance group, with Peter Bingham (Vancouver, British Columbia) and Helen Clarke (now in Lapin, New South Wales, Australia), and currently his own company AH HA Productions , in his home base of Montreal. Peter Bingham cofounded EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music) in Vancouver in 1982, including both choreographed and improvised work. Since the late 1970s Eva Karczag has been a dancemaker, dancer, dance improviser, and educator based in Europe and influenced by studies in tai chi, Alexander Technique, and Ideokinesis who danced with Richard Alston (United Kingdom) and Trisha Brown (United States). Alessandro Certini and Charlotte Zerbey and Company Blu, based in Tuscany, Italy, have been creating, presenting, and experimenting with improvised performance since 1979. Yvonne Meier, originally from Switzerland and now based in New York City, has been making improvised works since 1979 and has developed a Score Technique inspired from her work in Authentic Movement and Skinner Releasing. In the early 1980s Al Wunder started the Theatre of the Ordinary in Melbourne, Australia, which investigates open improvisation—combining movement, words, sounds, and music—and invites the participation of people of all levels of performance experience. Kirstie Simson, who trained at the Laban Center in London and danced with experimental British choreographer Rosemary Butcher, is a Contact Improviser and performance improviser who, since the 1980s, has had an extensive performing and teaching career throughout Europe and the United States. K.J. Holmes, a dancemaker, improviser, singer, and poet based in New York City, has been weaving interdisciplinary collaborative works influenced by studies in Body-Mind Centering and Contact Improvisation since 1981. Yoshiko Chuma, experimentalist and choreographer from Japan now based in New York City, is an interdisciplinary master collaborator 188 G LOSSARY OF PE OPLE AND T ER M S through her company the School of Hard Knocks, founded in 1984. Since the mid-1980s Karen Nelson, based in Washington State, has combined dance improvisation, performance, and meditation in work that includes persons of diverse ages and abilities; in 1987 Nelson and cofounder Alito Alessi created DanceAbility, a dance company and training that uses dance improvisation to explore and promote artistic expression and relationships between people with and without disability. Ishmael Houston-Jones, choreographer , writer, dance performer, and improviser based in New York City, is known for his performance physicality and presence as well as his works that, since the 1980s, have expanded the field’s territory, tackling gender, race, and...