Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Diane Madden [sound recording].

Author

Madden, Diane.

Publication

2011.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Mey, Cassie.

Description

6 sound discs (ca. 296 min.): digital; 4 3/4 in. +

Summary

• Disc 1 (ca. 51 min.) 3/15/11. Diane Madden speaks with Cassie Mey about her family background and memories from her childhood; her first interest in dance and first memories of dance classes; becoming serious about a performance career and figuring out her identity as a dancer; the support she received from her first teacher, Marcia Brunner; studying ballet intensively at the Joffrey Ballet School after early graduation from high school; re-discovering her relationship to dance through Zena Rommett Floor-Barre technique and beginning to establish herself as a young adult; making decisions about her own education and development.
• Disc 2 (ca. 53 min.). Diane Madden speaks with Cassie Mey about her decision to attend Hampshire College; her work and experience there and the strong influence it had on her future, particularly because of her teacher Eleanor Huston; some of the pieces she worked on with Huston at Hampshire College; her first class with Trisha Brown; auditioning for the Trisha Brown Company; leaving college and her first experiences with the company including dancing in Brown's works Locus and Line up .
• Disc 3 (ca. 55 min.) 3/16/11. Diane Madden speaks with Cassie Mey further about her time at Hampshire College and her first exposure to improvisational dance and contact improvisation; generational shifts in the teaching of contact improvisation; other dance and movement experiences in college; the altered perception of time when performing and how Madden incorporates that knowledge into the teaching of technique as well as the experience and teaching of Trisha Brown's repertory; creating and performing Brown's Son of gone fishin'.
• Disc 4 (ca. 55 min.). Describes her life in the early years of the Trisha Brown Company; including becoming rehearsal director and the impact that had on her dancing; reflects on her relationship with Trisha Brown; the creation of Set and reset; Madden's own qualities and motivations as a dancer; the process of working with Brown on For M.G.: the movie as well as teaching it to others, specifically, Sam [Samuel von Wentz]; reflections on the span and thematic elements of Brown's work and her own relationship to these themes and to Brown's artistry; the use of time and music in Brown's work.
• Disc 5 (ca. 55 min.) 4/15/11. Diane Madden speaks with Cassie Mey about traveling with the Trisha Brown Company including stories from a particularly dramatic European tour and her stay in Naples, Italy while Brown choreographed Lina Wertmüller's 1986 production of the opera Carmen; her knee injury before performing in the opera Orfeo; other injuries and the way the Klein technique has supported her dancing; participating in Klein technique teacher training; her own dilemma regarding the caring for her body as she gets older; her decision to have a child and its effect on her career choices; other projects she worked on not involving the Trisha Brown Company ; her decision to return full time to the Trisha Brown Company, both as rehearsal director and performer while continuing to explore her own work; the possibilities and conflicts that this choice created; her own choreography and improvisation.
• Disc 6 (27 min.). Diane Madden speaks with Cassie Mey further about her own choreography; early performances and the aspects of her own work and creative process that she finds most compelling; the challenges of working with other choreographers and how those challenges have nourished her as an artist; her goals and interests with respect to her teaching.

Alternative Title

Dance Oral History Project.

Subjects

• Audiotapes > Madden, D
• Son of gone fishin' (Choreographic work : Brown, T)
• Contact improvisation
• Huston, Eleanor
• Trisha Brown Company
• Hampshire College
• Improvisation in dance
• Carmen (Choreographic work : Brown)
• Madden, Diane
• For M.G.: the movie (Choreographic work : Brown)
• Set and reset (Choreographic work : Brown)
• Dance > Study and teaching

Note

• Interview with Diane Madden conducted by Cassie Mey on March 15 and 16 and April 15, 2011 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City as part of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division's Oral History Project.
• For transcript see: *MGZMT 3-2875.

Access (note)

• Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Funding (note)

• The assistance of the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Call Number

*MGZTL 4-2875

OCLC

783579169

Author

Madden, Diane. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Diane Madden [sound recording].

Imprint

2011.

Funding

The assistance of the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Local Subject

Contact improvisation.

Added Author

Mey, Cassie. Interviewer

Research Call Number

*MGZTL 4-2875

*MGZMT 3-2875