Are we as children meant to dance, meant to feel rhythm? Some people seem born to dance and some people need only to find the kind of dance that speaks to them and that is partially what the documentary on Anna Halprin "Breath Made Visible" is about. Anna Halprin, 89, was a pioneer in post-modern dance and when she moved with her husband, Lawrence Halprin, to San Francisco after World War II, she formed the San Francisco's Dancers Workshop in 1959 along with other dancers such as Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer and Simone Forti.
Her husband, who served on a ship near Okinawa during the war, as a civilian was a landscape architect, and he built her an outdoor studio with a great deck under California redwood trees. Anna Halprin had been in New York, but admits she would not have been able to survive in that kind of environment. She mentions in the movie, "My greatest love is dancing in the natural world."
In a sense, this documentary, sensitively directed by Ruedi Gerber, is about two artists who were in love and out of their love, built a kind of artistic life and reached out to help and heal others.
As there are different stages of life, there are different stages of dance. Anna Halprin recalls in a performance, "when I was about five years old, I danced for the fun of it...When I was a teenager, I danced to rebel."
Being Jewish, she tells us, is being part of a tribe. She grew up loving her grandfather who had come from the Russian ghettos and loved to dance. Anna thought God must look like her grandfather and "I thought God was a dancer," she recalls.
Anna Halprin wasn't satisfied with just dancing to satisfy herself, she also danced to heal individuals and communities. It's worth remembering that Halprin caused a scandal for using nudity in her dance performances in the 1950s and then in the 1960s, after the Watts Riots, she created a multicultural dance company, bringing together black dancers from Los Angeles and white dancers from San Francisco. She also worked with cancer patients, being a cancer survivor herself.
This documentary is an interesting contemplation about what it means to live an artistic life and plainly shows that being artistic and creative doesn't mean giving up a family life. From a historical perspective, it's encouraging to find a female artist who made a difference in her art and the lives of other artists while continuing to nurture her own children in a stable and lasting family. Lawrence Halprin died in 2009 (25 October). Their children were also concerned with people. Daria Halprin is a psychologist, author and actor. Rana Halprin is a photographer and activist for Romani and human rights.
Anna Halprin continues to teach and even to dance, because being old doesn't mean one doesn't want to dance or need to dance.
May 5-12, 2010
Seattle - North West Film Forum
May 7-13, 2010
Los Angeles, CA - Laemmle Music Hall
May 9 & 11, 2010
Pleasantville, NY - Jacob Burns Film Center
May 21-27, 2010
Denver, CO - Denver Film Society
May 21 & 22, 2010
Oklahoma City, OK - Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Trailer for "Breath Made Visible."
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