Mark Constantini
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Originally published on May 25, 2021 6:11 pm
Influential choreographer and dancer Anna Halprin has died at age 100. Her art spanned high modernist works and collaborations with artists like John Cage to community-oriented projects that have helped guide people through serious illnesses. Her death was announced by her family; no other details were given.
Born Anna Schuman in Winnetka, Ill., in 1920, Halprin began studying dance as a little girl. She later pursued her studies at the University of Wisconsin, where she met landscape architect Lawrence Halprin; they were married for 70 years before his death in 2009.
After World War II, the couple settled in San Francisco — a move that reoriented Halprin away from the tight modernist circles of their former home, New York City, and towards different modalities. In 1955, Halprin founded the groundbreaking San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, where her students included Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown and Meredith Monk. She collaborated there with composers John Cage, Terry Riley and La Monte Young, among other creative forces.