by Victoria Lucas

Actually, thanks, I'd love to dance

Good day, readers. It's been a long time since I wrote about music in San Francisco, but when I did you might remember that I wrote about the San Francisco Tape Music Center and its experimental music.

321 Divisadero, as their venue is known, is not just the TMC. It also houses Radio Stations KPFA/KPFB (the San Francisco part) and something (on the 3rd floor) called the Dancers Workshop Studio.

But I'm not a dancer

Even after becoming curious about the people "upstairs" – namely Anna Halprin, who runs said studio – I've mostly seen her group dances outside around San Francisco, too busy with other things to get to indoor workshops or to her famous deck in Kentfield (north of San Francisco), built for her by her architect husband Larry Halprin.

Larry and Anna Halprin, architect & dancer

And my boy friend Mel and I have a sort of budget of both time and money that is pretty loose but by which we hope to avoid both bankruptcy and fatigue. (As I've written here before, there is a LOT to do in San Francisco and surrounding area.)

Halprin left the dance of the theatre for the dance of life

Eventually I learned that Anna Halprin studied contemporary dance and started a performance company with dancers AA Leath and John Graham, her daughters Daria and Rana Halprin, and designers Joe Landor and Patrick Hickey. They toured nationally and internationally before starting the San Francisco studio in 1964. There they worked with a dizzying array of avant-garde composers, filmmakers, poets, and other dancers, including dancer Merce Cunningham, John Cage's partner.

Cage & Cunningham pose with artist Robert Rauschenberg

Like Cage, Halprin uses pictorial scores and chance operations, but always with her focus on self-awareness as her pupils perform movements. She's also tackled issues of race and sexuality head on.

Radical refers to "root" & I can dig it

In "Parades and Changes" she introduced full-on nudity to San Francisco audiences and, even more radical, the idea that anyone could dance with "more like 10 seconds" of training rather than the 10 years dance maven Martha Graham laid down.

Halprin during a workshop

Unfortunately, I missed the performances at the Playhouse where I volunteer my time, since they were before my move to The City. After the "Trunk Dance" in 1959, the name of Terry Riley appears on the 1961 program for "Four Legged Stool," and Morton Subotnick and David Tudor (who also acts as electronicist for Cage and Cunningham) created the music for her revision called "Five Legged Stool" the following year.

She eventually realized, according to what I've read, that she wanted to get beyond dance as a performance piece or something based on specific music or a programmed narrative. She worked with Gestalt-psychologist Fritz Perls and engaged with the audience after "Parades and Changes," with a vision of "spontaneity and freedom." That is a performance I wish I had seen – sometimes there are so many things going on that if you're not at the right place and time to see a notice about something you miss it entirely! This is why I buy the Sunday Chronicle with the pink section in it every week–their event lists are pretty thorough. (But they might not cover "workshops.")

Anna Halprin by herself

I hope to still be able to make at least one of her workshops or events in future. Ms Halprin, if you live to be 100 I suspect you will not be able to realize all the talent and compassion within you. Good luck! (And thank you, Ms Michaels, for the honorific "Ms"!)

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