In One Thing Follows Another, boundary-crossing collection of ten poetic/experimental essays, Witte and Rosenthal explore the work of dancer-choreographers Yvonne Rainer and Simone Forti, both at various inflection points throughout their careers and in this particular moment. Through a combination of chance operations and intentional artistic choices that push the authors to unexpected places—including the zoo, the dance studio, the street corner—and via innovative forms and techniques, such as collage, erasure, and their own inventions, they deconstruct the essay form to examine what they as poets, each with their own highly charged relationships to dance, can contribute to the conversation about these pivotal figures in postmodern art.
About the Authors
Sarah Rosenthal is the author of Estelle Meaning Star (Chax, forthcoming), Lizard (Chax, 2016), Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009), and several chapbooks. In collaboration with Valerie Witte, she has published the hybrid works The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (Operating System, 2019) and One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer. She edited A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Poets of the Bay Area (Dalkey Archive, 2010). Her short film We Agree on the Sun has received numerous accolades on the film festival circuit, including Best Experimental Short at the 2021 Berlin Independent Film Festival. She is the recipient of the Leo Litwak Fiction Award, a Creative Capacity Innovation Grant, a San Francisco Education Fund Grant, and writing residencies at Cel del Nord, This Will Take Time, Hambidge, Vermont Studio Center, Soul Mountain, Ragdale, and New York Mills. She lives in San Francisco, where she manages projects for the Center for the Collaborative Classroom, works as a life and professional coach, and serves on the California Book Awards poetry jury. More at sarahrosenthal.net.
Valerie Witte is the author of A Rupture in the Interiors (Airlie Press, 2023) and a game of correspondence (Black Radish, 2015). In collaboration with Sarah Rosenthal, she has published the hybrid works The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (Operating System, 2019) and One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer. She has published multiple chapbooks, most recently Listening Through the Body (above/ground press, 2021). Her work has also appeared in several literary publications such as VOLT, Diagram, Dusie, and Interim. Her previous collaborations include projects with artist Jennifer Yorke, who produced two artist books based on Witte’s manuscript Flood Diary and an installation based on her manuscript A Rupture in the Interiors. The works were exhibited in Berkeley and Chicago, respectively, and their collaboration included a residency at La Porte Peinte Center for the Arts in Noyers, France. Witte has attended residencies through Hambidge Center and Ragdale Foundation and is a founding member of the Bay Area Correspondence School. She edits education technology books in Portland, OR, where she lives with her husband, Andrew. More at valeriewitte.com.
About the Cover Artist
Jennifer Mack-Watkins is a contemporary visual artist whose primary studio practice entails silkscreen, Japanese woodblock, and other forms of printmaking techniques. Her work investigates the societal constructs that can leave women feeling isolated and explores definitions of femininity based on widely held notions of beauty and cultural norms. Her aesthetic draws from a confluence of reference points, most of which include her Mokuhanga printmaking techniques and her culturally rich Southern roots. In 2015 Mack-Watkins was selected to participate in the Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory artist-in-residence program in Yamanashi, Japan, and was a Joan Mitchell Foundation 2015 Emerging Artist nominee. Her work has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, Vogue, Art and Object, Savannah Magazine, and Essence. Her awards include the Elizabeth Catlett Printmaking Award presented by Hampton University Museum and a National Black Arts Foundation grant. She has also been named a Penland School of Crafts Distinguished Fellow Resident Artist, one of Savannah Magazine’s 6 Artists to Add to Your Collection 2023, a Schomberg Literary Festival Featured Artist, and a Haystack School of Crafts Retreat Invited Participant. She is the recipient of the Highlights Foundation’s 2023 Floyd Cooper Scholarship. Mack-Watkins holds a BA in studio arts from Morris Brown College, an MAT from Tufts University, and an MFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute. More at jennifermwatkins.com.
