Anna Halprin

Anna Halprin Interview with The New York Times.

From March 12, 2010.

Why is it important to make dance accessible and focus on everyday movement?

I’ve always questioned why would you imitate other people’s movement. What’s the point of that? Each person has a unique body, has a unique series of responses to their life and their response to life around them. I did human dissection for about a year. I wanted to find out the nature of how the body moves that is universal to all bodies. I don’t identify as being a postmodern dancer although historically that seems to be a way to place an artist somewhere. Of course studying the body as an expressive instrument is a lifetime study so I keep at it.

Can dance still break boundaries?

I think so. I love the flash mob. I think that’s wonderful. That’s another new way of opening up the boundaries. Everybody can dance and we can dance at any time — it’s a matter of looking at life in particular way and let’s celebrate it or let’s protest it. There was a wonderful kind of flash mob at City Hall in our rotunda that was related to gay marriage and it was wonderful. As long as people are aware of what they’re feelings are and what their desires are and what they’re responding to, then dance is a great way to put that out.