Simone Forti is a dancer/choreographer/artist/writer based in Los Angeles. In 1955 she began dancing with Anna Halprin who was doing pioneering work in dance improvisation. After studying and performing with Halprin in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years, Forti moved to New York where she studied composition at the Merce Cunningham Studio with educator/musicologist Robert Dunn, who was introducing his students to the work of John Cage. There she met and began working informally with choreographers including Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Steve Paxton. Forti's 1961 concert "Five Dance Constructions" and "Some Other Things" proved to be influential in both the dance world and the art world. Over the years Forti returned to improvisation, including extensive collaborations with musicians Charlemagne Palestine and Peter Van Riper. Since the early 1980s she has been practicing a form wherein movement and words spontaneously weave together. Taking the news as her subject matter, she calls these improvised performances News Animations. Forti's publications include Handbook in Motion, published by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and Oh, Tongue, edited and published by Fred Dewey for Beyond Baroque Books. Forti is represented by The Box LA Gallery.
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CD
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SLT 004CD
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Saltern presents Al Di Là, the first full-length collection of recordings by renowned dancer/choreographer, artist, and writer Simone Forti. Forti (born 1935, Florence, Italy) has influenced generations of artists through her innovative approaches to dance and movement. Forti is noted for her extensive work with musicians, including Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Jon Gibson, Peter Van Riper, and Z'EV, among others. With Al Di Là, we hear Forti musically in her own right through a diverse collection of never-before-released pieces, ranging from the early '60s to mid-80s, that highlight Forti's use of her voice, folk songs, handmade instruments, and physical space. The album, compiled by Forti with the assistance of Tashi Wada, includes a rare guest appearance by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela and features a 28-page color booklet of writings, drawings, and photos by Forti. Al Di Là is a uniquely personal and intimate portrait of one of the truly visionary artists of our time. Edition of 550. Printed at Stoughton Printing Company. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.
From Forti's liner notes: "I'm awaiting a song from afar, from afar, a song of goodbye from afar. For now I've seen the game I was playing, slowly leaving the earth and drifting far among the stars."
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10"
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BOX 002LP
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Postmodern artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer Simone Forti originally wrote the Hippie Gospel Songs in 1969/70, around the time of the Woodstock Festival. She explains: "before coming to California where I started working and performing with Charlemagne Palestine and studying Tai Chi at the California Institute of the Arts, I had spent a year in Woodstock, New York, stoned in the woods. Now with Charlemagne at the piano I ran in circles and figure eights." The seven songs on the record were recorded in 2012 during Forti's exhibition Sounding at The Box, Los Angeles. This Box Editions release on 10" blue vinyl features an etching of Forti's Illuminations Drawing (1972) on side B and is accompanied by a 16-page color book with images of the original sheet music scored by artist, musician, and Forti's long-time collaborator Charlemagne Palestine. Includes download code.
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