Ann Cooper Albright is professor at the Department of Dance at Oberlin College as well as a dancer, scholar and a 2019-2020 John Simon Memorial Guggenheim fellow. For this event, she will present a performative reading of Simone Forti: improvising a life, her latest book. Albright is also the co-editor of Taken by Surprise: Improvisation in Dance and Mind. She is a veteran practitioner of Contact Improvisation, has taught workshops internationally and facilitated Critical Mass: Cl @ 50 which brought 300 dancers to Oberlin from across the world to learn, talk and dance together in celebration of the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary form. Encounters with Contact Improvisation is the product of one of her adventures in writing and dancing and dancing and writing with others, as is the new collection Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50.
Simone Forti, groundbreaking improvisor, has spent a lifetime weaving together the movement of her mind with the movement of her body to create a unique oeuvre situated at the intersection of dancing and art practices. Her seminal Dance Constructions from the 1960s crafted a new approach to dance composition and helped inspire the investigations of Judson Dance Theater. In the 1970s, Forti's explorations of animal movements expanded that legacy to launch improvisation as a valuable artform in its own right.
This event is free and open to the public.
Supported by the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Dance.
Sullivant Hall, Room 225
1813 North High Street
Columbus, OH 43210
