At nearly 90 years old, an age when most people are sitting around waiting for the Grim Reaper, envelope-pushing, modern-dance pioneer Anna Halprin is still mentally and physically spry.
Proof is offered in the brisk documentary “Breath Made Visible,” directed by one of her former students, Ruedi Gerber.
The cinematic portrait includes interviews with her two daughters (one, Daria, starred in Antonioni’s 1969 cult classic “Zabriskie Point”), who tell of growing up among their mom’s hippie friends; dance contemporaries such as the late Merce Cunningham; assorted friends, collaborators and students; and, of course, Halprin herself.
She says that “dance is what you see, what you smell and what you hear,” and credits her art with helping her beat cancer in the 1970s.
The main attraction is little-seen archival footage going back 50 years, including scenes from the 1960s “Parades and Changes,” with artful nudity that was praised in Europe but brought threats of arrest in New York.