Yvonne Rainer

Born in 1934 in San Francisco, Yvonne Rainer moved in 1956 to New York City where she was introduced to modern dance at the Martha Graham School. She choreographed her first piece, Three Satie Spoons (1960-61), while attending a workshop at the Merce Cunningham Studio. Between 1962 and 64, Rainer was a key member of the informal group known as the Judson Dance Theater along with dancers and visual artists Trisha Brown, Robert Morris, Steve Paxton, and Robert Rauschenberg. There, she explored the use of banal, everyday actions in order to expand or challenge the conventions of dance. Her 1965 “No Manifesto,” urging for an anti-spectacular aesthetics, was epitomized in the most visible signature of her career, Trio A (1966). In 1970 Rainer formed The Grand Union with Brown and Paxton, along with Douglas Dunn and David Gordon. The collective explored spontaneity in dance and challenged conventional notions of authorship by foregrounding improvisation. At the same time, Rainer gradually transitioned to film. In her cinematographic work (seven feature films between 1972 and 1996), she played with disjunctions and montage, incorporating past dance performances, narrative content, texts, and photographs. In 2000, upon an invitation from Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rainer returned to dance. In her seven productions since then, Rainer has combined postures and movements from performance history, popular culture, sporting events, and politics to create fast-paced, witty, and thought-provoking dances.