Simone Forti

Simone Forti is widely celebrated as a pioneering and innovative dancer, choreographer, artist, and writer, working at the nexus of minimalism and postmodern dance. Her contributions to the Fluxus movement have made her a highly influential figure, and Forti’s seminal work Dance Constructions (1960-61) was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. She has collaborated and worked alongside artists including Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Morris, Charlemagne Palestine, Peter Van Riper, Dan Graham, and Claes Oldenburg. 

Born in 1935 in Florence, Italy, Forti and her Jewish family relocated to Switzerland in 1939 to escape anti-Semitic persecution. Her family later settled in Los Angeles, where as a young child Forti pursued an interest in dance. Forti married the artist Robert Morris in San Francisco in 1955, and they moved together to New York City in 1959. Morris and Forti attended Hunter College in the early 1960s to study visual arts. He earned an MA, while she graduated with her BFA in 1965. Simultaneously, Forti was pioneering postmodern dance choreography in New York with figures like Robert Dunn, a group that eventually formed the Judson Dance Theater. While still living in New York City, Forti performed in three choreographed works by Rauschenberg, Linoleum (1966), Open Score (1966), and Urban Round (1967).

Forti taught at UCLA from 1998 until 2015 and continues to show her work internationally, despite a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Returning to Hunter College in 2017, Forti danced the solo improvisation News Animations during the 50th anniversary commemorative performance of Anna Halprin’s Parades and Changes, originally performed at Hunter in 1967.