Born in San Francisco in 1934, Yvonne Rainer had an unconventional and contradictory upbringing. Her parents – a Polish-Jewish mother ("a potential stage mother") and an Italian father ("an anarchist and a house painter") – mingled with artistic bohemians and political radicals, but for several years she and her brother were raised away in a disciplinarian children's home. Confused, intense, adventurous and often depressed, young Rainer fell into the art world, where she met her future husband Al Held, an abstract expressionist painter. She moved to New York in 1956, in part to be with him.
Initially she studied acting, but the Stanislavski method then in vogue did not suit her. She turned to dance, training with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and ballerina Mia Slavenska. A turning point was Anna Halprin's experimental summer school in California in 1960, where she first met Trisha Brown. Back in New York, Rainer and Brown became founding members of the enormously influential Judson Dance Theatrein 1962, a loose collective of artists interested in experimental performance. Among them was Robert Morris, with whom Rainer formed an intense and complex relationship.
Rainer was the most prolific and controversial of the Judson choreographers, and threw herself into a kind of anti-dance which favoured banal movements, non-expression, randomness and disconnectedness. Her famous dance manifesto of 1965 (see "In her own words", below) and her 1966 Trio A became not only signatures for her but emblems of the whole Judson movement.
Author of article; Sanjoy Roy
Last updated; Friday 24th December 2010
Date accessed - 03/02/2012
Rainer became a central figure in the American postmodern dance movement, specifically the New York activity surrounding the venue, Judson Church. Following Merce Cunningham’s lead, Judson Dance Theatre was inclusive of artists working in other disciplines. Filmmaking was particularly predominant at Judson Dance Theatre events and Sally Banes describes this area as a “key outgrowth” of the group.
Title of article; Yvonne Rainer
Author; Erin Brannigan
Date Accessed; 03/02/2012
Yvonne was born in November 1934. She believed that anyone could dance and that any movement could be danced.
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