Yvonne Rainer

January 28, 2025

YRYvonne Rainer
EOEmmanuel Olunkwa

Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. In 1956, aged 21, she left San Francisco for New York City, where she studied with Edith Stephen, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham before returning briefly to the West Coast to work with Anna Halprin and Robert Dunn. With Dunn she composed her first dances, and by the early 1960s she was at the center of the Judson Dance Theater, staging performances defined by their refusal of theatricality and emotionalism, privileging instead the casual, the spare, and the repetitious. These works challenged inherited vocabularies of virtuosity and spectacle, redirecting attention toward ordinary movement and the politics of attention embedded within performance.

Over the following decades Rainer’s work grew more overtly polemical. Between 1970 and 2000 she turned primarily to film, interrogating structures of power, gender, and privilege through a distinct cinematic language that combined essayistic narration, archival citation, and autobiographical reflection. In 2000 she returned to dance, integrating these critical concerns into choreographic form, and she continues to choreograph today. Our exchange reflects on Rainer’s singular career while attending to the shifting conditions surrounding performance and moving image. This conversation took place in January 2025.

YRYvonne Rainer
EOEmmanuel Olunkwa

At 90, how has your relationship to your body, both as a tool and a subject in your work, changed over the decades?

Yes, of course it’s changed: grown less limber; tires more easily; suffers recurring aches and pains—but I can’t complain; I’m still walking fast on two legs—

Has your view of success, legacy, and fulfillment shifted as you’ve grown older?

Not much, although I’m not nearly as creative as I used to be—

Did literature play a role in your relationship to movement?

It did insofar as I used readings in my later choreography—

Are there particular moments or milestones in your career that feel especially vivid or meaningful now?

The Mattress Dance (also known as Parts of Some Sextets, 1965) remains vivid for me, and of course the blunderbuss Trio A and all its variations—

What lessons have you learned about the creative process that you wish you had known earlier in your career?

Can’t answer that—in my case the “creative process” kept taking different forms, like film, speech, indeterminacy—

You’ve lived through profound cultural and political changes. How have these shifts shaped or been reflected in your work?

Politics and feminism and their particular manifestations in daily life kept seeping into my work over the years, in both dance and film—

Are there elements of your past works or methods that you reflect on now?

Of course, the particular talents of my performers have always been an issue; like contributing my dreams in a recent work to a trio of women who had previously worked with me—

How do you approach questions of how your work will be remembered or contextualized in the future?

I don’t like to think about that, although friends urge me to, so some of the chances have gone to the Getty Research Institute and I forget the name of the institution in D.C., maybe the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts—

Do you think there’s something unique about the way aging influences creative expression or process?

It’s inevitable—you must either let go or tighten the reins and institutionalize yourself—I prefer the former—

Who in your network of peers has had the most lasting impact on you, and how do you see their contributions now?

Pat Catterson, Emily Coates, and in the more distant past: Merce Cunningham and Steve Paxton—

What do you think future generations can learn from the Judson Dance Theater’s ethos and impact?

It seems to me that the several generations that have followed mine have already assimilated what we did in the ‘60s—

Do you feel your pace as an artist has changed, or is your approach still as rigorous as it was in earlier years?

As I said earlier, I’ve slowed down—I don’t know about “rigor”—

Looking back, is there a particular piece or period of your life that you’re most proud of?

Certainly the early Judson years loom as important—Pride? It comes and goes (!!!)

What advice would you offer to young artists who feel overwhelmed by the pressures of innovation and success?

Calm down; stay optimistic; work and try to enjoy it—

What continues to excite you—whether in art, life, or the broader cultural landscape?

The work of some of those who have performed with me; the Black Lives Matter movement; Whoever is resisting our current asshole President Trump—

How much of your creative work is driven by careful planning versus spontaneous intuition?

It’s hard to measure them against each other—

Were there moments in your personal life—outside of the studio—that deeply shifted your artistic perspective?

Aging; the feminist movement; the death of contemporaries—the physical decline of my partner—

How has your personal relationship with the concept of aging influenced your artistic or thematic focus?

I have insisted on incorporating the concept of aging into my work—including a performance of Trio A at age 85, that included talking about my physical difficulties as I performed it—the knowledgable audience roared with laughter—

Can you share a project or idea that didn’t go as planned but taught you something critical about your practice?

Hard to recall—

How do you handle creative exhaustion or moments when inspiration seems elusive?

Take a nap. (!)

Humor often appears in your work. How do you see its role in your creative toolkit, and has it changed over time?

Humor is elusive; I try to catch it happening in rehearsal, like have a performer yawn while watching others perform—

Do you believe art can still be a revolutionary tool in today’s sociopolitical climate, or has its power been diluted by institutionalization?

One can always hope for that; otherwise why go on?

As an artist, do you feel a responsibility to address certain themes or issues, or is art’s role inherently open-ended?

My sense of responsibility changes from year to year; it’s hard to generalize—one never knows what dreams will come up with (!!!)

What topics or ideas do you feel artists, especially of your generation, have avoided or left unexplored?

Maybe not enough about poly-sexuality—

How involved are you in shaping the narrative around your own archive and legacy?

Fairly involved; I have lots of help with that; I’m no good at it—

Are there aspects of your work that you feel have been misunderstood or misinterpreted by younger artists or critics?

Over the years, of course—especially in the early days by critics, which was fine by me. (!!!)

Do you ever consider how your work might resonate in 100 years, and does that influence your creative decisions now?

Not at all. (!!!)

What are some aspects of your life that bring you joy or fulfillment entirely separate from art and performance?

Friendships.

Are there routines or habits that have kept you grounded or productive throughout your career?

Lifting weights; walking fast;

Your work blurs the boundaries between choreography, film, and text. How did you approach integrating these forms without one overpowering the others?

One overpowering the other isn’t always a bad idea—

How do you think the politics of movement—whether through choreography or film—mirror the political climate of a given time?

It depends on the choreographer—

Your choreography is often described as minimalist. Do you view this label as restrictive, or does it offer a kind of freedom?

It is definitely restrictive, and I’ve always objected to it when it is used to sum up my work—

What role does collaboration play in your creative process, and how have your collaborators influenced the evolution of your work?

That has changed over the years—the more recent choreography depends a lot on the decisions of the performers, and is allowed to change from performance to performance—the most recent manifestation—“Rainer Dreams”—reflects this: the three performers devise the movement, using my dreams as source material—

What prompted your shift from dance to filmmaking, and what did you find liberating or limiting about working in cinema?

Aging—Cinema enabled me to mix things up via intercutting image, voice, words, inter titles, synch sound, et al.—

How has your perception of the body, its potential, and its limitations evolved throughout your career?

Aging provides a whole new, though limited, range of motion—

Do you think there’s still room for experimentation in a world where art often feels commodified or institutionalized?

Yes, always. (!!!)

Do you see a distinct difference in how younger artists approach themes of identity, politics, and abstraction compared to your generation?

Always new variations, especially among artists and choreographers of color—

Spoken text is an essential element in many of your works. How do you determine when and how language enters the frame?

Didn’t I answer that in answering the question about my transition to film?

Looking back, is there a particular piece that you feel encapsulates your philosophy as an artist?

No.

Are there any contemporary artists—across disciplines—whose work you find particularly compelling or resonant with your own?

Nancy Graves, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, and Robert Rauschenberg.

How did you sustain a practice that continues to push boundaries over the span of decades?

Stubbornness, boredom, and laughter.