- unitid
-
{"value"=>"23214", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"*MGZMD 422", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"b20945617", "type"=>"local_b"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1929-2019", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1929/2019"}
{"value"=>"1958-2014", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1958/2014"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Elaine Summers papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"62 boxes, 1 oversize folder", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"24.8 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"6283 computer files", "unit"=>"computer_files"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"11.7 gigabytes", "unit"=>"gigabytes"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Jerome Robbins Dance Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Elaine Summers (1925-2014) was an American dancer, choreographer, experimental filmmaker, artist, and teacher. The Elaine Summers papers date from 1929 to 2019 (bulk 1958-2014) and document her career, as well as the histories of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company, and the Kinetic Awareness Center. The collection contains dance scores; published articles and reviews; programs; press releases; personal and professional correspondence; subject files created by Summers; photographs; printed material; notebooks; film, video and sound recordings; website materials; and administrative files from the Experimental Intermedia Foundation and the Kinetic Awareness Center."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Summers, Elaine, 1925-2014", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p><span class=\"persname\">Elaine Summers</span> (1925-2014) was an American dancer, choreographer, experimental filmmaker, artist, and teacher. Born <span class=\"persname\">Lillian Elaine Smither</span>s in Perth, Australia, she and her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts around 1929. Summers studied dance as a child and earned a bachelor's degree in art education from Massachusetts College of Art in 1947. After a brief period working as an arts supervisor for the Wallingford, Connecticut school system, <span class=\"persname\">Summers</span> moved to New York City in 1951 and married <span class=\"persname\">Carol Summers</span> around this time. Throughout the 1950s, she attended classes at the Juilliard School of Dance and the Martha Graham Studio, taught children's dance classes, and began developing her own practice of somatic bodywork, Kinetic Awareness, a term which she coined.</p> <p>In the early 1960s, <span class=\"persname\">Summers</span> was a founding member of a workshop group made up of performing and visual artists influenced by avant-garde choreographers <span class=\"persname\">Merce Cunningham</span> and <span class=\"persname\">Robert Ellis Dunn</span>. This group went on to form the Judson Dance Theater, which helped launch the careers of such experimental dancers and choreographers as <span class=\"persname\">Judith Dunn</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Deborah Hay</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Trisha Brown</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Lucinda Childs</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Meredith Monk</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Yvonne Rainer</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Fred Herko</span>, and <span class=\"persname\">David Gordon</span>.</p> <p><span class=\"persname\">Summers</span> worked innovatively across media disciplines, especially combining dance with film and visual art. Using the term \"intermedia\" in regard to her own work, she considered dance and film to be intrinsically related. In 1968, Summers founded The Experimental Intermedia Foundation and The Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company. The Foundation's first board of directors included <span class=\"persname\">Robert Ellis Dunn</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Stanley Vanderbeek</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Jack Perlman</span>. <span class=\"persname\">Frank Jewett</span>, and <span class=\"persname\">Jan DeGaetani</span>. Summers considered <span class=\"title\">Fantastic Gardens</span> (1964), which she staged at the Judson Memorial Church, to be her first successful intermedia piece. The work utilized Merce Cunningham's chance method, a choreographic technique that encourages surprise elements to occur within set boundaries, through improvisational dance amid sculptural forms, film projected throughout the space, and audience participation. Among her other well-known works are <span class=\"title\">Walking Dance for Any #</span> (1968), <span class=\"title\">Kinetic Athletic Frenzy</span> (1969), <span class=\"title\">Energy Changes</span> (1973), <span class=\"title\">Illuminated Workingman</span> (1975), <span class=\"title\">Crow's Nest</span> (1982), and <span class=\"title\">Hidden Forest</span> (2007).</p> <p>Throughout her career, <span class=\"persname\">Summers</span> worked collaboratively with other choreographers, composers, filmmakers, and visual artists, many of whom took on leadership roles within the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Video artist <span class=\"persname\">Davidson Gigliotti</span>, who became Summers's second husband, was one of her most frequent creative partners. Other frequent collaborators included composers <span class=\"persname\">Phill Niblock</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Carman Moore</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Philip Corner</span>, <span class=\"persname\">Pauline Oliveros</span>, and <span class=\"persname\">Malcolm Goldstein</span>. From the 1980s until the end of her life, Summers and various collaborators worked on an ongoing performance art series titled <span class=\"title\">SkyDance/SkyTime/SkyWeb</span>, staging events in this series around the world. Noted iterations of <span class=\"title\">SkyDance</span> include one in 1982 at the University of Iowa, which featured local dancers and inflatable sculptures by German artist <span class=\"persname\">Otto Piene</span> with music by <span class=\"persname\">Carman Moore</span>.</p> <p>Around 1983, <span class=\"famname\">Summers</span> opened the Kinetic Awareness Center, where she held classes for dancers and others interested studying the connections between body and mind. She also created a teacher training program and further developed somatic dance techniques that she integrated into her choreography.</p> <p>In 1989, Summers was awarded the Western European Regional Research Fulbright Scholarship to study the interplay between film and dance in Italy. That same year, she earned a master's degree in choreography from New York University.</p> <p>During the 1990s, <span class=\"famname\">Summers</span> and <span class=\"famname\">Gigliotti</span> briefly relocated to Florida, taking Summers' Kinetic Awareness teaching practice south with them, before returning to New York City in the early 2000s, where <span class=\"famname\">Summers</span> continued her choreographic work and teaching until her death in 2014.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Elaine Summers papers date from 1929 to 2019, and elucidate her career as a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and founder of the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company, The Experimental Intermedia Foundation (EIF), and the Kinetic Awareness Center (KAC). The collection primarily focuses on Summers's career after the founding of the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company in 1968, with particular focus on the company's activities between the 1970s and the 1980s; the history and administrative undertakings of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation (EIF); and Summers's deep involvement as a practitioner and teacher of Kinetic Awareness (KA). Many of her intermedia works are thoroughly documented in the collection, including <span class=\"title\">Crow's Nest</span>, <span class=\"title\">Energy Changes</span>, <span class=\"title\">Illuminated Workingman</span>, <span class=\"title\">Theater Piece for Chairs and Ladders</span>, <span class=\"title\">Invitation to Secret Dancers</span>, <span class=\"title\">Flowing Rock/Still Waters</span>, <span class=\"title\">Solitary Geography</span>, and <span class=\"title\">SkyDance/SkyTime/SkyWeb</span> (henceforth shortened to <span class=\"title\">SkyDance</span>).</p> <p>The collection consists primarily of correspondence; dance scores; EIF files; KAC files; notes and notebooks; photographs; film, video, and sound recordings; subject files; and website files. Also present are a few files relating to the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company, which generally hold administrative documents, project descriptions and notes, budgets, and other financial or business materials. Additionally, the collection includes posters, scrapbooks, clippings, programs, and publicity materials.</p> <p>Correspondence is arranged chronologically, and is both personal and professional in nature. The majority of the correspondence consists of professional letters regarding EIF, KAC, and various performances. Many of the letters are outgoing appeals for funds or contain information about the projects of EIF and of the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company. A significant quantity of email correspondence is present. Correspondents include friends, colleagues, and members of the board of the Kinetic Awareness Center, such as Mimi Cherney, Pearl Bowser, Barbara Leverone, Marguerite Thomas, Paula Court, Amy Guggenheim, George Ashley, Leeny Sack, Charles Allcroft, Patti Bradshaw, Thomas Houser, and Dorothy Friedman. \"Letters of delight\" consist of incoming, personal letters sent to Summers that she filed separately.</p> <p>Dance scores include choreographic notations, diagrams, and conceptual descriptions of many of Summers's works including <span class=\"title\">Crow's Nest</span>, <span class=\"title\">Dressing and Undressing</span>, <span class=\"title\">Invitation to Secret Dancers</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Walking Dance for Any #</span>.</p> <p>The Experimental Intermedia Foundation files document the administrative and programming activities of the foundation and contain foundation descriptions, letters, notes, board of directors meeting minutes, newsletters, resumes, financial documents, and grant files. Grant and fundraising files document the foundation's efforts to secure funds through several entities, including the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Many of the grant applications contain detailed descriptions of projects taken on by the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company.</p> <p>The Kinetic Awareness Center files document the development and programming of the Center from its inception in 1983 until Summers' death in 2014. Materials consist of articles on movement, kinetics, and anatomy; publicity documents; memoranda and meeting notes; and information regarding the Center's Teacher Training Program. Documents pertaining to the Center's finances and board of directors are also present.</p> <p>Notebooks chiefly contain teaching notes from KAC or other ideas concerning somatic studies. Many of the notebooks are incomplete, and contain a combination of the teaching notes, contact lists, to-do lists, meeting notes, stream of consciousness entries, and recipes. Some of the notebooks present KA students' physical symptoms and describe the movement exercises used, including bodywork and ball work. A small quantity of autobiographical essays is also included. Summers frequently wrote meeting notes or personal reflections in her appointment books in addition to daily plans.</p> <p>Photographs date from the 1920s to 2013. The majority of this section is arranged alphabetically by dance performance title or topic, preceded by a few chronologically arranged files. They include performance and rehearsal images; promotional images; portraits of Summers throughout her life; family snapshots; images used for reference, inspiration, and as backdrops within performances. <span class=\"title\">Energy Changes</span> is particularly well-documented through the photographs, with images from various performances dating between 1973 and 1982. Dancers depicted in the photographs include Summers, Rudy Perez, Phoebe Neville, Tedrian Chizik, Edward Barton, Robert Kushner, Tony Nunziata, Alexandra Ogsbury, and Roberta Escamilla Garrison. Other artists and musicians photographed include Philip Corner, Carman Moore, and Pauline Oliveros; and photographs of other works, such as the filming of Huey's <span class=\"title\">Grace, A Portrait of Grace DeCarlton Ross</span> and the rehearsal of <span class=\"title\">Sounds Out of Silent Spaces</span> at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Slides files hold research material, which Summers sometimes referred to as movement studies, or \"found dancers,\" primarily for her <span class=\"title\">Illuminated Workingman</span>. These images depict construction workers, police officers, firefighters, construction sites, scaffolding, and street images from different angles. Other slides depict athletes in motion that Summers used as studies for <span class=\"title\">Kinetic Athletic Frenzy</span> and abstract patterns that Summers altered using different methods of painting or etching.</p> <p>Programs and publicity materials document Summers's performances from 1964 to the 2010s. Articles and announcements primarily relate to performances put on by the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company. A few published periodicals and journals containing articles about Summers's work are also present.</p> <p>Recordings include film, video, and sound recordings. The film and video recordings are performance footage and Summers's experimental film work, with a much smaller quantity of rehearsal footage and home movies. Sound recordings include music featured in performances and interviews with Summers. While the recordings themselves are not currently available pending digitization, one box (box 60) of separated material, including editing notes and tracklists pertaining to them is accessible to researchers.</p> <p>The subject files were prepared by Summers over the course of her career. They are arranged alphabetically by subject, person, or work, and contain a wide range of document types, including articles, press materials, notes, project descriptions, and letters. Among the more robust files are those for specific intermedia and choreographic works, such as <span class=\"title\">Hidden Forest</span>, <span class=\"title\">Illuminated Workingman</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Crow's Nest</span>. These files typically contain choreographic descriptions, performance information, notes, articles, sketches, and press releases. Multiple files document the different aspects of <span class=\"title\">SkyDance</span>, such as advertising, performance planning, fundraising, and meetings regarding the short- and long-term goals of the project. Researchers should note that the subject files were retained as Summers accumulated and kept them, and that several of the subjects documented therein are likely further represented in other areas of the collection, particularly the administrative and programming endeavors of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation and the Kinetic Awareness Center. For a complete survey of these topics, researchers should refer to the correspondence, dance scores, Experimental Intermedia Foundation, and Kinetic Awareness Center files.</p> <p>Website files contain graphic elements and other web content featured on her website as well as website visit traffic statistics. Elaine Summers arrived relatively early to the internet, setting up home pages for EIF, KAC, and the Elaine Summers Dance and Film Company around 1997.</p> <p>Writings and biographies chiefly contain essays, blurbs, and notes created by Summers. Interview transcripts, resumes, and biographical sketches are also present, as well as drafts and a final version of her thesis: <span class=\"title\">Choreography and Filmdance</span>.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection is arranged alphabetically.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gift of Elaine Summers, 2010. Additional materials were acquired in 2014, 2015, and 2019.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Robyn Hjermstad</span> in <span class=\"date\">2016</span>.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Inquiries regarding audio and moving image materials in the collection may be directed to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division (dance@nypl.org). Audio and moving image materials will be subject to preservation assessment and migration prior to access.</p>"}
- revisiondesc
-
{"value"=>"Additions consisting chiefly of electronic records, photographs, and recorded sound\n and moving images were made to the collection. These additions were described in detail\n and the collection's finding aid front matter was edited accordingly by Heather Halliday\n in", "date"=>"April 2022."}
- date_start
-
1929
- keydate
-
1929
- date_end
-
2019
- date_inclusive_start
-
1929
- date_inclusive_end
-
2019
- date_bulk_start
-
1958
- date_bulk_end
-
2014
- extent_statement
-
24.8 linear feet (62 boxes, 1 oversize folder); 11.7 gigabytes (6283 computer files)
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Elaine Summers papers, *MGZMD 422. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts"}