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This article approaches dance through the lens of new materialist theories (speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, thing theory, posthumanism, etc.), considering the possibility that objecthood need not align with inertness and movement need not be excluded from the realm of the substantive. Deploying a practice-based methodology informed by participation in works by Simone Forti and Maria Hassabi, as well her own movement investigation, the author considers theoretical positions that counter the persistent association of dance with ephemerality while also broadly questioning the relationship between dance and theory.

Tracing a period in her life from the 1969 Woodstock Festival through the following years living on the land, this singular dance artist's direct and poetic writings bring a turbulent transitional era to life. Arriving in New York in the early 60's from California, she brought with her a series of pieces that proved to be a serious influence on the development of \"postmodern\" dance in years to come. Her \"dance-constructions\" were based on a concern with bodies in action, the movement not being stylized or presented for its visual line but rather as a physical fact. Combining drawings, \"dance reports\" (short descriptions of events whose movement made a deep impression on the author's memory), and documentary materials such as scores, descriptions, letters to colleagues, and photographic records of performances, Forti's eye toward creating idioms for exploring natural forms and behaviors is evident throughout. Simone Forti shifted from painting in 1955 to study dance with Anna Halprin and went on to study composition with Robert Dunn at the Merce Cunningham Studio leading to her association with Judson Dance Theater in the '60s. Her work spans from early minimalist dance-constructions, through animal movement studies, news animations, land portraits, and currently, Logomotion, an improvisational form based on the resonance between movement and the spoken word. She performs and teaches worldwide.

Interview with Simone Forti and performers about her creation \"The huddle\". It also joins a workshop session given by Simone and a demonstration of her technique for dance construction.

Discusses the importance of the work of dancer and choreographer Simone Forti to the development of Minimalist visual art in New York in the 1960s. Emphasises the lack of attention to Forti's work in art-historical accounts of the period, describes the early development of her radical dance practice, the influence of Happenings artists on her work and the Minimalist shift from emotional expressiveness in her mature work, discussing her 'Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things' (1961, illus.), relating it closely to the Minimalist sculptor Robert Morris's 'Plywood Show' (1964, illus.), noting the dance pieces' phenomenological audience experience, predetermined rules and the blurring of boundaries between real space and the performative, and suggesting Forti's sculptural approach to dance, viewing the body as an object much as seen in Morris's sculpture. Concludes by discussing the performativity ascribed by Michael Fried to Minimalist sculpture, suggesting the hitherto unacknowledged influence of Forti's choreography on this work and expands the definition of Minimalist art.

The presumption that a sculpture is a lump of stone or bronze meant to monumentally endure went out of the window long ago.

Taking his time, he rose and brought the sound and scent close to each member of the audience, which was arrayed around him and Ms. Forti in chairs and on the floor.

Fiercely competitive at first, the duet switched to a mock courtship (\"Come here often?\") and then an exercise in Bush-era newspeak (\"I'm putting my weapon of mass destruction on your ear\") before reaching a final, hard-won acceptance of reality (\"I'm standing still\"). Some challenging lifts occurred midway through, but mostly the dancing focused on matched, side-by-side passagework. For its part, Victoria Marks' satiric \"Creation\" warned against the dangers of over-interpretation, as Dan Froot and Peter Carpenter offered progressively bizarre descriptions of the gestural solo that Marks kept dancing throughout the piece. Ranging in style from hyper-energetic sportscasting (\"Just look at those reflexes!\") to florid poeticizing (\"blowing on the feathers of remembrance\") to demented sexual obsession (\"They say no but they mean yes\"), Froot and Carpenter subjected Marks' solo to every possible interpretive distortion.

That also could be said of two improvisatory blendings of speech and movement, each titled ''Logomotion.'' The first, a solo for Ms. [Simone Forti], was based on words called out by members of the audience: ''curly,'' ''phosphorescence'' and ''deepen.'' The dancegoers who suggested them spoke so shyly as to be almost inaudible, and as she twisted on the floor and raised her arms in wonder, Ms. Forti's own words were equally hard to comprehend.