Simone Forti, the pioneering choreographer who connected performance, dance, and contemporary art, died Wednesday morning at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 91, according to Jason Underhill, her longtime assistant and a trustee of the Simone Forti Art Trust. The cause of death could not be confirmed, though Forti had been open about her years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Over the course of a long and wide-ranging career, Forti combined intense curiosity with formal discipline across an expansive body of work that included movement, painting, poetry, video, and holography. Her practice moved freely between disciplines while remaining rooted in experimentation and precision.
“The more you look, you will find her standing in the midst of nearly every avant-garde that hit New York and California over five decades at least,” said Glenn Phillips, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute, which acquired Forti’s archives in 2020, in an email to Hyperallergic. His remark reflected the breadth of her influence across multiple art worlds and generations.
