Anna Halprin was voted by the members and visitors of Universe Spirit as our September Dance Artist of the month.
Anna Halprin, PhD., pioneer in dance and New Theater, has influenced the principal theater, dance, and growth centers of the world. Blending ancient traditions, contemporary issues, and aesthetics, she is founder of the San Francisco Dancers' Worksop, co-founder of the Tamalpa Institute, and author of Moving Toward Life, Returning to Health, and Dance As A Healing Art. The has recieved numerous honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Dance Guild, and many others. In 1997, Anna received the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Modern Dance from the American Dance Festival.
"From improvisation and street theatre to dances in the environment and healing dances, Anna Halprin's work has prefigured - and transfigured- crucial developments in postmodern dance. Halprin is the author of Moving Toward Life: Five Decades of Transformational Dance (Wesleyan University Press, 1995). She is the 1997 recipient of ADF's most prestigous award, the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Modern Dance."
Anna Halprin is one of the most influential dance artists of the 21st century. She has recognized new directions for dance and courageously followed those paths into unknown territories. Her early theatrical experiments were joined by dancers who later formed the Judson Church group in New York in the 60s. Halprin's work is the historical antecedent of the post-modern dance, yet she continues to surpass most of its practitioners in terms of her willingness to adapt her work to the present moment. Halprin's approach to dance led to a broad redefinition of the form which affects all dancers of the post-modern idiom to this day. She is one of the first people in the contemporary Western world to use dance as both a healing art and a performing art. Her work focuses on the integration of the physical body with the emotional body and the effects of mental imagery on movement, which she has implemented in venues ranging from stage performance to therapeutic work with cancer and AIDS patients. She has developed the PsychoKinetic Visualization Process, the Life/Art Process and Movement Ritual; publishing several books and videos that chronicle her pioneering approach to movement. Anna has been recognized as a central figure in the world of dance with numerous honors and awards, most recently, the American Dance Festival's Samuel H. Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance.
Anna Halprin is a central figure in the world of dance, honored with numerous honors and awards. Convinced that everyone has the innate gift to dance, she has cultivated a process by which everyone can develop their natural sense of creativity through movement. Her approach emphasizes and revitalizes that whole person through the integration of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions.
Read one of Anna’s articles ‘Healing the Mountain: Ceremony and Ritual applied to Community Life’ by visiting the website of ‘In Context" at www.context.org/ICLIB/IC05/Halprin.htm
For more info on Anna visit www.annahalprin.org and www.tamalpa.org
For a calendar of Anna’s events visit www.annahalprin.org/Calendar.html