BOOK REVIEW
From Marin “Domestic Choreography” to West Coast Postmodern Dance
by MARLENA GITTLEMAN
T he Choreography of Environments tells modern home com- missioned in 1951 in Kentfield, California, by Anna and Lawrence Halprin. Janice Ross investigates how these specific elements— stairs, the well-known backyard dance deck, chairs, and windows—in their spectacular everydayness, came to shape not only the bodily routines of the Halprins, but also how those bodily routines went on to shape each of their professional contributions. Ross situates each Halprin as a choreographer in their respective field: Anna in dance and Larry in landscape architecture a nd urban design. What their work shares across disci- plines is an orchestration of movement and the encour- agement of embodied, sensorial participation; their Marin home made this kinesthetically salient in both life and art. Ross details what she terms “domestic cho- reography,” showing, for example, how the rhythmic everyday movements of traversing floating stairs inside the house and redwood stairs in the backyard get incor- porated into Larry’s work with waterfalls in Portland Open Space Sequenc e and Anna’s work with procession in Parades and Changes (both from 1965). Ross draws out resonances, backed by her own experiences of visit- ing the house, conversations with the Halprin family, rich archival materials (she has also written Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance ), and a bit of embodied imagina- tion. In doing so, she follows the Halprins in modeling the story of specific ele- ments of a mid-century
The Choreography of Environments
The dance deck soon after completion in 1954
a receptivity to environment that invites readers to not only cognitively understand but also feel into the spaces she describes. The Choreography of Environments also tells the story of a decades-long interdisciplinary collaboration between Anna and Larry. In doing so, the book focuses on the couple’s continual negotiation between pri- vate and public, interior and exterior, over the course of nearly 70 years of domestic and professional life on the foothills of Mount Tamalpais. The Halprins built the dance deck, in part, for a pragmatic reason: Anna could work on her art while still taking care of their two children, Daria and Rana. The resultant everyday ritu- als of dressing, eating, bathing, and play all made their way into her task-based workshops and performances. Ross delves into the strains and surprises that arose: one
What their work shares across disciplines is an
How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design
orchestration of movement and the encouragement of embodied, sensorial participation; their Marin home made this kinesthetically salient in both life and art.
Janice L Ross
Book Cover: Anna Halprin dancing for a photo shoot in Caygill Garden, CA, designed by Lawrence Halprin (1951)
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