Research Catalog

Title

Robert Kovich papers, 1958-1990.

Author

Kovich, Robert.

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

1.5 linear feet (3 boxes)

Summary

The Robert Kovich papers span the years 1958-1990 and consist of correspondence, teaching notes, workshop material, grant applications, choreography notes and sketches, some photographs, and materials reflecting collaboration with other artists, such as John King and Rhys Chatham.

Subjects

• Dance > Study and teaching
• Photographs
• Notebooks
• Programs
• Dance teachers
• Choreographers > United States > 20th century
• Chatham, Rhys
• Sketches
• Modern dance > United States > 20th century
• Notes
• Cunningham, Merce
• Correspondence
• Kovich, Robert
• Choreographer

Genre/Form

• Correspondence.
• Programs.
• Photographs.
• Notes.
• Notebooks.
• Sketches.

Location of Other Archival Materials (note)

• Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Indexes/Finding Aids (note)

• Collection guide available in repository and on internet.

Call Number

(S) *MGZMD 206

OCLC

243664666

Author

Kovich, Robert.

Title

Robert Kovich papers, 1958-1990.

Biography

Robert Kovich was a dancer and choreographer, originally with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In the 1980s, Kovich performed, choreographed, and taught dance, mainly in New York and France. Robert Kovich was born in California on January 17, 1950. He studied dance with Isa Partsch Bergsohn at the University of California-Santa Barbara from 1968 to 1971, and then with Judith Dunn and Martha Wittman at Bennington College in Vermont from 1970 to 1972, where he received a bachelor's degree. Kovich was a dance fellow at the Judith Dunn/Bill Dixon Dance Company from 1971 to 1972, and in 1973, he joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York as a dancer and teacher. In 1981, Kovich left Merce Cunningham and moved to France to work as a choreographer and teacher. From 1981 through 1984, supported by the French Ministry of Culture, Kovich choreographed Loupe for the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, Tarantula (with Tarantella) for the Festival at Arles, and Scanner/Rhapsody at the Pompidou Center. Kovich also presented dances in New York during this time and worked as a choreographer and teacher for various dance companies and festivals in the United States, Europe and Israel. Throughout the 1980s, Kovich created dances that explored the traditional roles of musician and dancer, collaborating with such musicians as John King, Rhys Chatham and Linda Benglis. He produced a variety of works at dance workshops, festivals and centers in the New York area, North Carolina, Minnesota and other locations. Awarded grants and fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts among others, Kovich received the Metropolitan Life Foundation/American Dance Festival Young Choreographers Award in 1986. He was a member of the Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Kovich died of cancer at the age of 40 on April 23, 1991 in Manhattan. In his obituary, the New York Times noted that Kovich was known as a "demanding but gentle master teacher" and a dancer with "an ironic wit, great physical deftness and precision and a sense of vivid coloration."

Location of Other Archival Materials

See also *MGZEA (Robert Kovich Company, photographs) in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Indexes

Collection guide available in repository and on internet.

Connect to:

Request Access to Special Collections (Dance Division) material

Finding Aid

Occupation

Dance teachers.

Choreographer.

Research Call Number

(S) *MGZMD 206