January 2022
Dear friends, colleagues, members of the Kinetic Awareness Community,
Those of us who have been working on the Elaine Summers’ Legacy Project want to wish you Greetings and Best Wishes for 2022, and to share with you our progress and accomplishments since the loss of Elaine.
What is our goal?
The mission of the Legacy Project is to create a digital library of approximately 32 hour-long interviews with artists, dancers, longtime collaborating musicians and composers, Kinetic Awareness teachers, filmmakers, and other stakeholders in Elaine’s work. Our goal is to lay a foundation for future research, information-building, and creative work inspired by Elaine’s artistic vision and methods.
To organize our planning and research, the trajectory of Elaine’s career and its impacts have been divided into three “generations.” The first generation begins with the Judson years of 1962 through 1980. The second generation runs roughly from 1981 through 1997, and the third generation comprises the period of 1998 – 2014.
What have we done so far?
As of this writing we have been focusing on the first generation of artists. We have identified 30 people and interviewed choreographer/dancers Eiko Otake and Roberta Escamilla; dancers Alexandra Ogsbury, and Carol Marcy; composer/musicians Carman Moore and Malcolm Goldstein; Tai Chi Master Robert Chuckrow; playwright Daniel Sklar; and Leeny Sack, poet and performance artist.
Many of these artists are quite advanced in age, so time has been of the essence. Unfortunately, composers Pauline Oliveros and Jon Gibson, and writer Marianne Goldberg, passed away while the project was in its early formative stage. Their potential contributions are sorely missed.
A second goal of the project is to uncover and collect historical photographic, video and digitalized visual materials from the archives of the Artistic Estate of Elaine Summers at the Jerome Robbins Dance Collection, located at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, and in the extensive private collection of photographs by Paula Court. The collected visual data will then be edited into the interviews to give visual references and documentation.
We seek financial support for this part of the project.
What are we up to in 2022?
This year we will be contacting second generation artists for interviews:
Dale Andree, Nina D’Abbracci, Frances Becker, Robin Powell, Ellen Saltonstall, Jill Green, Merian Soto, Conce Nunes, Nina Martin, Amy Guggenheim, Gloria Desideri, Julie Sandler-Friedman, and Meg Dellenbaugh. During this phase Kinetic Awareness blossomed into its full pedagogical form, and the Kinetic Awareness® Center for the Kinetic Arts and Sciences was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The third generation’s interviews will move us into the period of Skytime - Elaine’s global vision for dance in the age of the Internet.
We are now actively looking for ways to finance and sustain the project’s research and editing expenses. We ask now both for your suggestions for both organizational and project grants, and for a direct donation. No amount is too small. And again, under our 501(c)(3) status, your donations are fully tax deductible in the U. S.
Please contact Michelle Berne at celarts@earthlink.net with your grant suggestions.
Wishing everyone the very best health and happiness,
Michelle Berne, Project Chairperson
with Meg Chang, Frances Becker, Thomas Körtvélyessy, Ann Law, and Alexandra Ogsbury.
To support our work financially, both checks and PayPal are acceptable.
- For PayPal please use elainesummersdance@gmail.com, as the payee address.
Please mention “The Legacy Project” in the memo field. - Checks can be made out to the Kinetic Awareness Center, Inc. and mailed to Charles R. Rosenberg, President, Kinetic Awareness Center, Inc., 484 West 43rd Street, #42-A, New York, NY 10036.
The Elaine Summers Legacy Project is facilitated by Kinetic Awareness® Center, Inc. a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation dedicated to research, education, and development in the kinetic arts and sciences. Special thanks to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. www.kineticawarenesscenter.org