NAME: Dorfman, David

BIRTH DATE/LOCATION:
7 November 1955, Chicago

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Photo: Greg Miller
courtesy David Dorfman

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  • identification & bio
  • key contact
  • human repositories
  • video documentation
  • photographic documentation
    		•
  • movement notation
  • production materials
  • oral history
  • personal papers
  • immediate needs
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    IDENTIFICATION AND BIO:
    A former athlete, David Dorfman is a postmodern dancer and choreographer whose work has frequently dealt with AIDS issues, particularly in the pieces titled Sleep Story (1987) and Dayenu (1992). (According to Dorfman's manager, Henry Liles, two other works—Horn (1990), co-created and performed with Dan Froot, and The Partial Truth (1992)—deal with AIDS but not as explicitly.) Sleep Story is a duet described as "brutally poignant" by Andrew Dreyfuss in The Boston Herald. Regina Popper described the piece in the St. Louis Dispatch: "Dorfman spoke and ran in place alongside a black clad female dancer poised like a battering ram to knock him to the floor in mid-sentence. Yet he always resumed his deluge of thought, refusing to stop and refusing to forget." Dayenu— a nine-minute solo with text by Dorfman, named after the Yiddish expression for "enough"—was created in 1991 for Day Without Art. It has been described by Village Voice critic Deborah Jowitt as a dance "that acknowledges current crisis ... cryptic, fast-talked litanies contrast with a body that is altering, maybe breaking up inside....Dorfman's ritual is twisted and jolted as if by disease or deprivation. Nothing is enough. Except the bad times." Dorfman was born in Chicago and received the MFA degree in dance from Connecticut College. He formed David Dorfman Dance in 1985 and regularly performs in a duet format with the performance artist Dan Froot.

    KEY CONTACT PERSON(S)/EXECUTOR OF ESTATE:
    David Dorfman
    c/o Henry Liles
    140 Second Avenue, #503
    212-677-2503 (phone)
    212-777-3923
    dddance@aol.com

    HUMAN REPOSITORIES OF THE WORK
    (name and contact info, relationship to the artist and the work, assessment):
    David Dorfman

    VIDEO DOCUMENTATION
    (location, format, condition, assessment):
    Dorfman's work is lavishly catalogued, including over 65 entries at the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library, but Sleep Story is the only one of Dorfman's four AIDS-related pieces that is available on video there, as follows:

    Get Down!: Benefit for Performance Space 122 (1988)—compilation video including Sleep Story with choreography by David Dorfman; taped in performance for Dance Theater Workshop's Dance/Video Access project at Performance Space 122, New York, on 4 February 1988; two 3/4 in, videocassettes (81 min); call number MGZIC 9-3720.

    Sleep Stories (1988)—compilation video taped in performance on 29 May at Performance Space 122, New York, with choreography and text by David Dorfman; including pieces Law of Return, Rounding the Bend, Silent Station, Tra i confini/Between the Boundaries, and Sleep Story; one 3/4 in, videocassette (56 min); call number MGZIC 9-4546.

    David Dorfman Dance (1989)—compilation video with choreography by David Dorfman; videotaped in performance at Dance Theater Workshop's Bessie Schnoberg Theater, New York, as part of Spring Events, 9 June 1989; includes Dorfman's pieces Sleep Story, Rounding the Bend, and Slow Run Back; two 3/4 in, videocassettes (52 min); call number MGZIC 9-6079.

    PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
    (location, format, condition, assessment):
    The Dance Collection of the New York Public Library maintains a photo file on Dorfman.

    MOVEMENT NOTATION
    (location, type [including notes taken by dancers], assessment):
    None identified.

    PRODUCTION MATERIALS
    (scores, sound recordings, set/costume designs):
    These materials are maintained by the company.

    ORAL HISTORY:
    None identified.

    PERSONAL PAPERS
    (location of newspaper clippings, printed programs, press releases, notes, files, diaries; assessment):
    The Dance Collection of the New York Public Library maintains a clippings file on "Dorfman, David," call number MGZR.

    IMMEDIATE NEEDS
    (archival assistance? storage? other?):
    None identified.

    OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION:
    None identified.

    LIST OR OVERVIEW OF AIDS-RELATED WORKS
    (title, premiere date, music, production notes, performers):

    Sleep Story (1987)

    Horn (1990)

    Dayenu (1992)

    The Partial Truth (1992)

    BIBLIOGRAPHY:

    • Fanger, Iris. 1992. "David Dorfman's Ascending Boundaries: Looking Up." Dance Magazine (April): 59-61.
    • Rosen, Lillie F. 1991. "Lillie Reviews" [review of David Dorfman's Sleep Story and the Dorfman/ Dan Froot collaboration Horn]. Attitude 7 (2) (winter/spring): 30-31, illus.
         		 
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