Helen Tamiris began studying modern dance at the Henry Street Settlement at age eight and at age fifteen began dancing for the Metropolitan Opera Company Ballet.
Helen Tamiris, the daughter of Russian immigrants, was born Helen Becker in 1902 on New York’s Lower East Side. By her own account, she used to dance wildly in the streets, until one of her brothers decided, “We must do something about Helen,” which resulted in her being enrolled at age eight in dance classes at the Henry Street Settlement House.
Helen Tamiris Broadway Productions
Anna Halpin Documentary - 2009
Anna Halprin, choreographer, for pioneering the post-modern dance movement. For more than 60 years, you have been a seminal force in dance and music and have developed and performed dances that teach, inspire, heal, and transform. Your creativity and experimentation break the walls between art and life, creating opportunities for generations of artists. In the spirit of the Helen Crocker Russell Award, made to an under-recognized, mature artist who has made a significant and ongoing contribution in the Bay Area.
Mountain Home Studio | October 2016
Excerpts of Anna Halprin's six hour workshop for Movement Research, March 2010 in NYC
Tamiris is considered a pioneer of American modern dance and one of the major American choreographers of the period, there is surprisingly little footage of her compared to other notable choreographers of the time, and ADF is grateful for NFPF's assistance in preserving this film and making it available to the public.
DNB -- Negro Spirituals (1965) by Helen Tamiris, excerpt A
DNB -- Dances of Walt Whitman (1958) by Helen Tamiris
Few dance artists have been as influential as Anna Halprin. In her ten decades as a dancer, she has redefined the art form, abandoning conventions and embracing the wide open field of creative expression. She has brought the healing power of embodied creativity to people around the world.
Born Anna Schuman in Winnetka, Ill., in 1920, Halprin began studying dance as a little girl. She later pursued her studies at the University of Wisconsin, where she met landscape architect Lawrence Halprin; they were married for 70 years before his death in 2009.
During the 1960s, a progressive liberation of the spectator from observer to active participant occurred in the visual and performing arts, which were reciprocally informed by participatory forms of social protest and performance: marches, sit-ins, riots, and so on.
In the mid-1950s, Halprin began to reject the idea of choreography as a series of fixed movement phrases. Searching for a new working process, she re-examined the theatrical elements available to her and reconceptualized her role as choreographer.
