Join the Movement, Frieze Magazine

Astrid Kaminski talks to Simone Forti, the legendary artist and choreographer who changed the course of both Postmodern dance and Minimal art. Artists Gerard & Kelly and Maria Hassabi, along with curator Ana Janevski, discuss Forti’s influence on their own work.

“A key aspect of these performances (Dance Constructions) lies in the quality of their execution – a principle pithily expressed by Vasilaki and Virkkunen as: ‘Nothing on top of it.’ This derives from Forti’s insistence on performance movement stemming from natural reactions to impulses without recourse to ‘dancy habits’. The body-mind attitude required for this is both contemplative and alert – something that has entered dancers’ basic vocabulary as ‘active passivity’, one result of the breakthrough of non-formalized and pedestrian movement in Postmodern dance.”