Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Arnold, Joan, 1948-
2. National Endowment for the Arts, 2009-2010
3. New York State Council on the Arts, 2009-2010

Description

1. 9 sound discs (ca. 556 min.): digital; 4 3/4 in. +

Summary

1. Disc 1, June 7, 2010 (ca. 62 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold about her parents, grandparents and early childhood; her memories of Australia and returning there later in life; stories from her childhood including memories of her mother and their family travels; moving to the United States, and anecdotes about her time in boarding school; more about her family and how her mother managed as a single parent during her early childhood.
2. Disc 2, (ca. 38 min.). Elaine Summers continues to speak with Joan Arnold about her childhood, including the circumstances surrounding the family's frequent moves, various schools she attended, and her mother's remarriage; her adolescence in Cambridge, Mass.; more on her mother; her physical activities as a child and early dance training, including studying ballet with Senia and Madame [Regina] Rusakoff; early moments that inspired her to become a choreographer.
3. Disc 3, June 9, 2010 (ca. 68 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold about attending the Massachusetts College of Art; attending several different high schools in the Boston area; memories of life during World War II, and her first romance, with a young soldier; tells anecdotes about her first exposure to modern dance in college, including traveling to New York City to take a short course at the Martha Graham Dance School; her childhood discovery that she had scoliosis, and other early observations about her body and movement; briefly speaks about her early exposure to modern dance companies, including the influences of Pearl Primus and Katherine Dunham; aspects of her education and creative awakening during this period; the nature of inspiration and creativity; meeting Pauline Oliveros and teaching her [Summer's system of bodywork called] Kinetic Awareness in 1968; Oliveros' music as the origin of her [Summers'] dance, Crow's nest.
4. Disc 4, (ca. 71 min.). Elaine Summers continues to speak with Joan Arnold about Kinetic Awareness, including how she incorporated it as the basis for her dance company and works, and its basis in experiential anatomy; tells brief anecdotes about teaching her first dance classes during her college years; briefly describes several of her college teachers and studying studio art; her life after college in rural Maine, and then St. Louis, including her dance studies there with Madame Cassan [a former dancer with Anna Pavlova's ballet company]; injuring her patella and her recovery; briefly, a 1952 summer course in ceramics at Alfred University where she met Carol Summers, and Johanna and Stan Vanderbeek; moving to New York to attend Juilliard [The Juilliard School] for one semester; her discovery of osteoarthritis in her hip, and its effect on her dancing; briefly some of the therapists, healers and teachers she worked with in New York and their philosophies, including Charlotte Selver and Carola Speads; briefly, participating in the Sunday Dance Gang, with Marilyn Wood, in 1968; tells an anecdote about showing Rudy Perez her Dance for Carola, her first Kinesthetic Awareness dance; studying dance at the Merce Cunningham Studio, and a brief anecdote about Carol Summers' influence on her artistic thinking; briefly how she became involved with the Bob [Robert] Dunn's composition classes at the Cunningham Studio.
5. Disc 5, June 21, 2010 (ca. 73 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold about her short time at the Juilliard School dance program in 1952, and briefly recalls her classmates there; briefly describes the types of therapies that she began after the discovery of osteoarthritis in her hip, both physical and psychological, and their impact on her; briefly speaks about her physical reorientation teachers, Charlotte Selver and Carola Speads; more on the origins and development of teaching Kinetic Awareness, including her first private classes; tells anecdotes about teaching dance to children and teenagers in the New York area during the mid-1950s; speaks about her pregnancy in 1957; briefly, living with Carol Summers, his art career at that time, and teaching Kinetic Awareness and dance in their studio; briefly discusses her life in New York in the 1950s and 1960s prior to her involvement with the Judson Dance Theater group, including the dance community, classes, and performances she attended; her study of anatomy and more on teaching Kinetic Awareness; classes she took during that period, including with James Waring and Merce Cunningham.
6. Disc 6 (ca. 64 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold briefly about the influence of her friend, the experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek; her first dance presented in the class of Bob Dunn, which eventually became the film Ondine; learning about camera work from Gene Friedman; other memories of artists from the Judson Dance Theater group and of the work being done in the 1960s; meeting Robin Howard and her company's performances in the ICES festival [International Carnival of Experimental Sound] in 1972; memories of the development of Judson Dance Theater after Dunn's classes ended and thoughts on why the Judson group eventually disbanded; balancing work and family life.
7. Disc 7, June 23, 2010 (ca. 67 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold about her own experience with respect to the development of New York City's Soho neighborhood and her artist friends who were living there, including the roles played by George Maciunas and Robert Watts; the development of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, and her definition of intermedia; briefly describes examples of her filming process.
8. Disc 8 (ca. 52 min.). Elaine Summers continues to speak with Joan Arnold about various intermedia artists and projects; briefly, her feeling regarding her career as reflected in the press and her place in history; her work, Country houses; tells an anecdote about the reconstruction of Country houses by Movement Research; living temporarily in Florida; briefly, her dance Flowing rock/still waters and certain thematic repetitions in her works; studying with Joseph Pilates; the origin of the use of balls in Kinetic Awareness-based works; speaks about organizing her own archives; briefly, reminisces about several of her works and critical responses to them; briefly, the Experimental Intermedia Foundation as a resource.
9. Disc 9 (ca. 61 min.). Elaine Summers speaks with Joan Arnold about her archives and teaching; tells an anecdote about constructing her piece, Skydance, at the University of Iowa; more on the logistical issues with respect to presenting her work; Kinetic Awareness and her choreographic aesthetics; current personal and professional concerns and projects, including her interactive web site Skytime.

Alternative title

1. Dance Oral History Project.

Subject

1. Summers, Carol
2. Summers, Elaine, 1925-
3. Wood, Marilyn, 1929-
4. Oliveros, Pauline, 1932-2016
5. Dance therapy
6. Experimental Intermedia Foundation
7. Dance in motion pictures, television, etc
8. Speads, Carola H
9. Judson Dance Theater
10. Selver, Charlotte
11. Maciunas, George, 1931-1978
12. Audiotapes > Summers, E
13. Pilates, Joseph H (Joseph Hubertus)
14. Postmodern dance
15. SoHo (New York, N.Y.)
16. Experimental films
17. Vanderbeek, Stan
18. Watts, Robert, 1923-1988
19. Dance > Study and teaching

Call number

1. *MGZTL 4-2626

Note

1. Interview with Elaine Summers conducted by Joan Arnold on June 7, 9, 21, and 23, 2010 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City as part of the Oral History Project.
2. For transcript see: *MGZMT 3-2626.

Access (note)

1. Photography of the transcripts permitted for research purposes only.

Funding (note)

1. The assistance of the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Author

1. Summers, Elaine, 1925- Interviewee

Title

1. Interview with Elaine Summers [sound recording].

Imprint

1. 2010.

Funding

1. The assistance of the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Restricted access

1. Photography of the transcripts permitted for research purposes only.

Added author

1. Arnold, Joan, 1948- Interviewer
2. National Endowment for the Arts, 2009-2010.
3. New York State Council on the Arts, 2009-2010.

Research call number

1. *MGZTL 4-2626
2. *MGZMT 3-2626