Simone Forti
Dance Constructions: Yoko Ono Chambers St. Loft Map
1974
Pen on paper
17.8 × 25.4 cm.
Unique
In honour of Simone Forti’s passing last month, Hyperallergic has just published an interview that Julia Bryan-Wilson conducted with the artist, dancer, choreographer and writer, particularly about her relationship with Yoko Ono.
Julia Bryan-Wilson: When did you first meet Yoko Ono? What were some of your initial impressions of her?
Simone Forti: I must have started hearing Yoko’s name around 1960. I knew that she was married to Toshi Ichiyanagi and that they both were doing interesting work in the larger artistic community that I shared with La Monte Young.
JBW: Your Dance Constructions were first seen at Yoko’s Chambers Street loft. How did this event come about?
SF: I became aware that she had a loft studio and that she was very generous with it, letting dancers sometimes use it. I have memories of working in a loft with Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton, and in a different loft with Bob Morris and Yvonne Rainer, and one of these lofts may well have been Yoko’s loft. La Monte Young is the person who invited me to participate in the series, and with whom I was in touch for practical matters. And Bob Morris is the person who helped me set up.
JBW: We’ve all seen pictures, but can you describe more about what the Chambers Street loft was like, architecturally as well as socially?
SF: The loft was a large raw rectangular space with a very rough wood floor and windows at one end. The entrance was along one of the longer walls and closer to the windows than to the “deep” end. My memory of it is that, like many of the lofts at that time, nothing had been painted. The walls, the floor, all had been left pretty much as they had been found, abandoned after decades of industrial use, just swept “clean” with a broom.
In terms of who frequented Yoko’s loft, I saw some of the performers in that series, Jackson Mac Low, Henry Flint, of course Bob Morris. And La Monte. I know that Merce Cunningham came to one of my evenings, because someone told me that he had liked it. I don’t think any of the artists from the Reuben Gallery frequented that series. I may be wrong, but I think that the conceptual and the imagistic theater (happenings) folks didn’t follow each other’s work. In fact, when I had performed at the Reuben Gallery a few months earlier, Lucas Samaras complained to me that my work was not poetic.
[...]
JBW: Some of your Dance Constructions use the word “instruction.” Had you known of Yoko’s Instruction Paintings, which are also from this time period?
SF: It’s possible that the “instructions” idea came to me from Yoko, through intermediaries, such as La Monte Young and Jackson Mac Low. But certainly the concept also came from John Cage, through Bob Dunn’s class. And I had probably worked with instructions with Anna Halprin, but I don’t remember if she used that term.
JBW: Did you ever see any of Yoko’s performances?
SF: I did see Charlotte Mormon perform Yoko’s piece where the audience members are invited to cut pieces of her dress right off of her [“Cut Piece,” first performed by Ono in 1964]. I think Charlotte had already been fighting cancer for some time, and the performance was very moving.
JBW: Did you participate in the cutting, and did you save the scrap?
SF: Yes, I cut a very small piece. I think it was red satin. I kept it for years in one of those little special containers we all have, but I’ve lost track of it.
JBW: Were you aware of Yoko’s 1961 “Voice Piece for Soprano, to Simone Morris,” in which she instructs us to scream “against the wind, against the wall, against the sky?” It is dedicated to you using your married full name. Do you have any idea why she might have specifically invoked you here?
SF: I’m thrilled to learn, or relearn, that Yoko made that piece and dedicated it to me. I tend to forget really important things. Maybe she dedicated the screaming piece to me because of my piece “Censor” that I performed in my spring 1961 concert in her loft. In that performance, one person vigorously shook a pan full of nails while the other sang an Italian folk song as loud as she could.
[...]
One memory I have is from around 1976, when I made a performance, Planet, at PS1. I remember sitting with Yoko on a ledge on the PS1 roof and talking together comfortably. It was restful. Decades later, in 2011, I received the Yoko Ono Lennon Award for Courage in the Arts. Yoko, of course, was at the reception, handing out the awards. I’m now 79. I think Yoko is one or two years older than me. Well, she was looking very sharp in her cap and high heels and her blouse that revealed her cleavage. Very quick on her feet and smiling.
Read the full text,
here.
