Nevertheless
A Choreographic Workbook
Published on 23. September 2025
Book
Hardback
176 pages
978-0-300-27928-3 (ISBN)
Description
A legendary choreographer's personal and practical guide to the art of dance-making
Yvonne Rainer was a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, a 1960s New York artists' collective that championed ordinary, spare movements and spontaneity. Rainer's decades of creativity-in dance and in filmmaking-have inspired generations of avant-garde, political, and feminist choreographers. Her many works include the iconic dance Trio A and the film Hand Movie.
In this book, Rainer dancer and choreographer Emmanuele Phuon helps Rainer gather teaching notes from her dance classes and workshops, passages from her creative journals, and her newer thoughts on movement and art, opening a window on to the life's work of a transformative artist. With fifty prompts for improvisational movement ("39. Travel a long distance as fast as you can while making regular changes in your means of locomotion"), sly illustrations by Pascal Lemaitre, and an illuminating interview with Phuon, this workbook makes Rainer's friendly, humorous, and down&-to-earth creative practice available to everyone. Because, as Rainer says, if you can move, you are a dancer.
Yvonne Rainer was a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, a 1960s New York artists' collective that championed ordinary, spare movements and spontaneity. Rainer's decades of creativity-in dance and in filmmaking-have inspired generations of avant-garde, political, and feminist choreographers. Her many works include the iconic dance Trio A and the film Hand Movie.
In this book, Rainer dancer and choreographer Emmanuele Phuon helps Rainer gather teaching notes from her dance classes and workshops, passages from her creative journals, and her newer thoughts on movement and art, opening a window on to the life's work of a transformative artist. With fifty prompts for improvisational movement ("39. Travel a long distance as fast as you can while making regular changes in your means of locomotion"), sly illustrations by Pascal Lemaitre, and an illuminating interview with Phuon, this workbook makes Rainer's friendly, humorous, and down&-to-earth creative practice available to everyone. Because, as Rainer says, if you can move, you are a dancer.
Reviews / Votes
"Rainer's accomplishment in this book is to translate her artistic mind into a practice. It is of course then truly original, and she is sharing her originality generously, humanly, here in this book. It's pure gold for someone who is wanting to wrestle with how this revolutionary choreographer upended art history."-Annie-B Parson, Big Dance TheaterMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
72 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 142 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
344 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-27928-3 (9780300279283)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Yvonne Rainer (b. 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, and a cofounder of the Judson Dance Theater. She lives in New York City. Emmanuele Phuon, a choreographer, dancer, and teacher, is a faculty member at Montclair State University, NYU Tisch School of the Arts' Open Arts/Collaborative Arts, and Yale University. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Pascal Lemaitre is an author and illustrator based in Belgium. He has illustrated five books by Toni Morrison and his work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and elsewhere.