DANCE REVIEW : Forti Integrates Culture, Nature

One of the subtlest postmodern innovators a quarter-century ago, Simone Forti brought to improvisational dance not only an analytical intelligence and a talent for movement expression, but a visionary integration of culture with nature.

In her four-part solo program at Highways in Santa Monica on Sunday, Forti once again described the landscape and danced what she described, making her body become a waterfall coursing through a rock-channel, a river winding mile after mile and even a stream of starlight.

Offering much more than mere pictorial images, these passages harnessed the energies of natural forces while sustaining an intensely personal point of view. So, in the same instant, Forti not only spoke about a steep cliff but showed it jutting into the sky--with herself gazing from the top edge into the valley below.

Forti also gave physical form to her dreams, contrasting her sense of the eternal Earth with the constant changes of national borders. In addition, she sang, sketched, read her father’s poems (in Italian), shared some of her own writings--and managed to knit everything together by reiterating thematic priorities.

Language itself developed into a central issue, for instance, as did her familiar concentration on how animals move and think. In dance terms, rolling and writhing emerged as key motifs, besides representing the most dramatic extremes of a style founded on honing ordinary, everyday movement until it reaches maximum control and expressivity.

The “Still Life” section, in which Forti danced contours and patterns that she developed from sketching a sprig of flowers, a cardboard box and a terra-cotta pot, looked more like a workshop demo than one of her complex, resonant pieces. However, it gave insights into the working methods of an artist who maintains an inspiring sense of connection to everything around her.