Simone Forti’s iconic work was performed at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center to honor the 88-year-old dance and visual art pioneer. The conceptual dance pieces featured a troupe of international performers from the worlds of ballet and Broadway, including Eva Alt, Eliza Blutt, Caroline Breton, Bonnie Comley, Mikayla Durham, Savannah Durham, Jonathan Fahoury, Xuetong "Cecilia" Feng, Kennard Henson, Marianna Kavallieratos, Sorin Prodea, Ava Sautter, and Demiân White.

The works were restaged for the event by Sarah Swenson and included Huddle, Censor, Landscape Partners, and Scramble. Simone Forti watchedvia livestream from her California home as seven hundred guests viewed the performance live in the Hamptons. The event occurred on a raised wooden stage surrounded by and incorporating trees growing through the stage.

Simone Forti is an innovative “conceptual artist” esteemed for her visionary work in creating dance and performance pieces centered on the concept of performance art. Most recently, Ms. Forti was recognized with the 2023 Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance. Forti’s work has also appeared in venues, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Louvre Museum, Paris; and Danspace, New York. She has had solo exhibitions at Centro Pecci, Prato (2021); Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2018); Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich (2017); Kunstmuseum, Bonn (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015), and her first major retrospective at the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria, 2014. Forti’s artwork is in collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Generali Foundation, and The Whitney Museum of American Art. Forti has received various awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in dance in 2005 and a Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in 2011.

About The Watermill Center

The Watermill Center was founded in 1992 by theater and visual artist Robert Wilson. The Watermill Center fosters research in the arts of the stage, providing emerging artists with a unique environment for creation and exploration in theater and all its related art forms and developing a robust global network transcending age, experience, and social, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The Watermill Center supports projects that integrate different genres and art forms, break with traditional forms of representation, and develop democratic and cross-cultural approaches.

For more information on The Watermill Center, see: www.watermillcenter.org