A Woman Who...: Essays, Interviews, Scripts

by Yvonne Rainer

Yvonne Rainer is one of the most important feminist, avant-garde filmmakers working today. She began her career as a dancer and choreographer, and was one of the founders of hte Judson Dance Theater. Since the mid-1970s, however, she has worked almost entirely in film and here works in that medium have been the subject of more than a dozen retrospectives, the most recent of which was at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. She has been honored with honorary degrees from art schools and with fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. Her works have unblinkingly explored such issues as menopause, breast cancer, lesbianism, sexual dissatisfaction,a nd political violence against women. Increasingly, they have moved beyond the festiva circuit to premiere in art theaters in the United States as well as overseas. Her most recent feature-length film, Murder and Murder (the script of which is included in this volume), opened in New York last month.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

440 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Yvonne Rainer was born in San Francisco in 1934. She trained as a modern dancer in New York and was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater in l962, a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance and art in the following decades. Since 1972, Rainer has completed seven feature-length films. She has received numerous awards and fellowships for her work, including two Guggenheim Fellowships (1969, 1988), a MacArthur Fellowship (1990-95), and a Wexner Prize (1995). A memoir, Feelings are Facts: a Life, was published in 2006.