Choreographer/Film maker... was born in San Francisco in 1934. She trained as a modern dancer in New York from 1957 and began to choreograph her own work in l960. She was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater in l962, the genesis of a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance in the following decades. Between l962 and l975 she presented her choreography throughout the United States and Europe, notably on Broadway in l969, in Scandinavia, London, Germany, and Italy between l964 and l972, and at the Festival D'Automne in Paris in l972. In l968 she began to integrate short films into her live performances and by l975 she had made a complete transition to filmmaking. Some of her better known dances and theater pieces are "Terrain" (1963), "The Mind is a Muscle" (1966-68), "Continuous Project-Altered Daily" (1969-70), "WAR" (1970), and "This is the story of a woman who..." (1973), and "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan", commissioned by the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation in 2000. Since 1972 Rainer has completed seven feature-length films, beginning with "Lives of Performers" and more recently "Privilege" (1990, winner of the Filmmakers' Trophy at the l99l Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, and the Geyer Werke Prize at the l99l International Documentary Film Festival in Munich), and "MURDER and murder" (1996, winner of the Teddy Award at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival and "Special Jury Award" at the 1999 Miami Lesbian and Gay Film Festival). All of her films have been shown throughout the U.S. and at major international film festivals. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, notably two Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Wexner Prize, seven NEA awards, three Rockefeller Fellowships, a "Bessie", and four Honorary Doctorates. Her latest book, A Woman Who...: Essays, Interviews, Scripts, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1999. Rainer's one-person exhibition, consisting of video installations and dance photos and memorabilia, opened in October, 2002 at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery in Philadelphia.