“On An Iron Post” represents an unforeseen comeback by Simone Forti with a solo show at an Italian gallery. The exhibition runs in parallel with “Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done” at MoMA, New York (September 16th, 2018 – February 3rd, 2019): tracing the history of the renowned choreographers, visual artists, composers, and filmmakers of the 60s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles, Simone Forti has been a leading figure in the development of contemporary performance over the last fifty years. Artist, choreographer, dancer, writer, Forti has dedicated herself to the research of a kinesthetic awareness, always engaging with experimentation and improvisation. The cooperation with other artists represents an important aspect of her practice, starting from her mentors Anna Haplrin and John Cage, to musicians such as Charlemagne Palestine and Peter Van Riper. In her recent works, News Animation, she began to include the use of spoken words in her dance. And she allows a very special interview about it.

Which kind of cultural and creative environment nourished your research on body language when you were at the beginning of your career? Which were your forms of inspiration?
I began dancing with Anna Halprin in San Francisco when I was twenty-one years old. She was just beginning to work with improvisation and was very inspired in her new direction. A few of us became her laboratory, sharing this sense of inspiration. Attention to sensation was a key, along with an attitude of exploration. She would assign us to physically explore, for instance, the force of gravity, or negative space between movers, or the freedom of the shoulder, or to take into our bodies some formal quality of a particular group of trees.

And which kind of encounters, you could now affirm, did change your practice and  life, including Peter Van Riper’s relationship?
I worked with Anna for four years before moving to New York where I found a composition class taught by Robert Dunn at the Merce Cunningham Studio. There I was introduced to the work of John Cage who was using elements of chance to arrive at sound that he could hear purely, without distraction of cultural habits and expectations. I realized that I could invent approaches that would give me what I felt I needed. At that moment I needed the simplicity of my body performing tasks without any stylization. That’s when I made the Dance Constructions (1961). These works use normal everyday movement to engage with objects such as a board equipped with ropes and set at an incline, inviting the performers to climb around on it.

How improvisation could demolish consciousness-walls erected between the way of thinking and body gestures? And how, on another hand, thoughts could definitely mould, or melt, our bodies?
For many years I have been improvising moving while speaking. I call this practice News Animations. I explore my fragmentary intuitions about the ways of the world as they became thoughts that can be spoken. These intuitions can take the form of mental models of energies in action, which I embody. A new thought can send me running or melt me to the ground. These days I find it hard to speak about the world.

What does the expression On an Iron Post mean, for you and in front of the show?
I am happy to be showing recent work, a triptych of related videos. As the centre of gravity of the show, “On an Iron Post”, they present an intimately physical engagement with ocean, river and lakefront and with sand, water and snow. Each video somehow refers to the broader world, with a mass of newspapers, with an abstracted flag, and with a little black crank-up radio. There is no intended message, but rather an invitation to let your body have its own ideas and thoughts.

Could you please describe the recent corpus of works you’ll be showing in Milan, encompassing a triptych of videos?
My newest work is a set of three videos, now on view at the Galleria Raffaella Cortese. The first, Zooma News, takes place at the shore of the Pacific Ocean where I soak a pile of newspapers in the surf while getting fully engaged with the sand and the waves. Flag in The Water takes place at the Mississippi River where I enter that body of water to soak an abstracted American flag. In A Free Consultation, which takes place at the shore of Lake Michigan, I crawl on my belly on the snow at the lake’s edge while playing a small crank up radio. The title of this video comes from a fragment of an advertisement heard on the radio. In all three videos I am guided by a need to let go of my thoughts while engaging physically with earth elements and with such products of civilization as newspapers, a flag and a radio. The show, “On an Iron Post”, also includes some items such as drawings of empty frames and a slide of a fly, displayed on a light box.   

Could you please express a message, a though for “On an Iron Post” visitors, in order to let their body having their own ideas and thoughts?
The title, “On an Iron Post”, was found by randomly opening a book of poetry of William Carlos Williams. I like that it doesn’t try to define the show while it adds another specific image.