Lillian Elaine Summers (February 20, 1925 – December 27, 2014) was an American

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

experimental filmmaker Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

, and intermedia pioneer. She was a founding member of the original workshop-group that would form the Judson Dance Theater and she significantly contributed to the interaction of

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

and

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

, as well as the expansion of dance into other related disciplines, such as

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and texti ...

, and

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...

. She fostered the expansion of performing dance in new, often outdoor locations. Her movement approach Kinetic Awareness offers a comprehensive perspective on human movement and dance. She died at Bellevue Hospital, New York, on the morning of December 27, 2014, after a fall at her home.

Early life

Elaine Summers was born in Perth, Western Australia and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts with her mother and her younger brother John. Although she took self-paid dance classes through adolescence, she first studied Art Education and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1947.

Moving to New York / Judson Dance Theater

In 1951 Elaine Summers came to New York and attended classes at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

of Dance, together with Paul Taylor and Carolyn Brown. She also studied with Louis Horst,

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

, Daniel Nagrin, Don Redlich, Mary Anthony, Charlotte Selver and Carola Speads, (both students of German body-reeducation pioneer

Elsa Gindler Elsa Gindler (19 June 1885 – 8 January 1961) was a somatic bodywork (alternative medicine), bodywork pioneer in Germany. Born in Berlin, teacher of wiktionary:Gymnastik, gymnastik, student of Hedwig Kallmeyer (who, in turn, had been a student of ...

), Jean Erdman, Janet Collins, and at the Martha Graham School. In 1962 Summers joined the composition class taught by Robert Ellis Dunn at the Merce Cunningham Studio in its second term, and subsequently became part of the workshop-group that would later be referred to as the Judson Dance Theater, together with Edward Bhartonne,

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her danc ...

, Lucinda Childs, Ruth Emerson,

Fred Herko Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Early life Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother was a ...

, Sally Gross, Deborah Hay, David Gordon, John Herbert McDowell, Gretchen MacLane, Robert Morris, Aileen Passloff, Steve Paxton, Rudy Perez, Yvonne Rainer,

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

, and Valda Setterfield. At Judson, Summers shared in the ongoing experiments with chance methods and pedestrian, everyday movements as part of the interest in expanding the then accepted methods of creating and performing dances. However, she also embraced the more theatrical part of the collective (as did Aileen Passloff, John Herbert McDowell and others). Summers expanded dance into other disciplines,

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

, and body work. In the later phase of the Judson Dance Theater she created dances that would be made to work with the entire environment of the performance space, notably ''Country Houses'' (1963), which included speaking non-sequitor one-liners, and her solo-concert ''Fantastic Gardens'' (1964), which included the first large-scale use of intermedia, immersing the entire performance area in film-projections, multiplied by the audience with hand-held mirrors.Mekas, Jonas (February 27, 1964), "Movie Journal", ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'', p. 12.

References

Sources

* Banes, Sally, ''Democracy's body''. Judson Dance Theater 1962–64. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1983 * Green, Jill, ''The Use of Balls in Kinetic Awareness'' 1982, JOPERD, Vol. 63 No. 8 * Saltonstall, Ellen ''Kinetic Awareness: Discovering Your Bodymind'' 1988, Kinetic Awareness Center / The Publishing Center for Cultural Resources, New York City (out of print) * Körtvélyessy, Thomas, ''committed to body choice and intermedia: Elaine Summers''. paper dance history, Rotterdamse Dansacademie, 1994 * Körtvélyessy, Thomas, ''completely coming into moving: Kinetic Awareness for the contemporary dance teacher''. paper educational sciences, Rotterdamse Dansacademie, 1996 (written in Dutch) * Wooster, Anne-Sargent, ''Elaine Summers: moving to dance''. The Drama Review T86, New York NY, December 1980, pp. 59–70

External links

Elaine Summers papers, 1929-2015
Jerome Robbins Dance Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Lincoln Center complex on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Situated between the Metropolitan O ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Summers, Elaine 1925 births 2014 deaths American choreographers American women experimental filmmakers People from Perth, Western Australia