About Iris
Iris Rifkin-Gainer passed away on April 2, 2023 in Lewisburg, Pennsylvanina, her hometown for the past 38 years.
Iris recently wrote about herself: “Iris Rifkin-Gainer: was fortunate to be a student at age three in the Museum of Modern Art’s children’s classes in NYC. In the same year, she began Creative Dance classes and thus her sensibilities were formed. She has long been a Dance Therapist in the U.S. with visits to the UK and China. She treasures her involvement in the late 1960’s with members of the St. Marks Poetry Project.”
Iris was a lifelong student of Blanche Evan, a pioneer who developed her own unique approach to Dance/Movement Therapy. Iris briefly served as the interim director of Ms. Evan’s DT Center in NYC in the 1970s. After receiving her MA in Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1970, Iris returned east to work as a dance therapist in private practice in New Haven and New York City, where she worked with both groups and individual clients. Iris was a faculty member in NYU's Graduate Dance Therapy Program for 14 years. Over several decades, Iris led Dance Therapy workshops at Kinections in Rochester, Hope College, Beijing DT Institute, Froebel College at Roehampton University in London, Naropa Institute, Smith College, Bucknell, and collaborated with her colleagues to offer Blanche Evan Dance Therapy workshops at several American Dance Therapy Association Conferences. Iris also contributed several articles in professional Dance Therapy journals and books.
It was clear from Iris’s undergraduate years as an English major, that Creative Writing was another one of her passions. Iris came of age as a poet in the 1960’s within the New York School of Poetry scene, particularly amongst the community’s second generation of young writers, working in and around the vibrant St. Mark’s Poetry Project. A few of Iris early poems from this St. Mark’s era were published in small magazines and in The World Anthology: Poems From The St. Mark’s Poetry Project (1969). In 2022, Iris had two poems in The Café Review, an issue featuring some of the writers and visual artists from this fervent artistic community. In recent years, Iris always relished poetry workshops offered by Bucknell University’s Stadler Center and attended its guest artist and faculty readings and study groups. Also under the Bucknell literary umbrella, Iris was a longtime devoted member and convener of the Feminist Fiction Reading Group.
Iris, her husband Robert and infant daughter Sarah, moved from New York City to Lewisburg in 1985, when Bob was offered a position in Bucknell University’s Theater Program. Iris and her family thrived within the academic community’s lively milieu of artistic endeavors, humanistic activities and deep friendships. At Bucknell, Iris proudly served as the Weis Center for The Performing Arts’ Outreach Arts Coordinator for 12 years. She occasionally performed within Bucknell Dance and Theater productions. She was also invited to present several lectures and classes within the Dance program.
During her time in Lewisburg, Iris also derived great pleasure in becoming a practicing collage and assemblage artist. She created visual art that juxtaposed evocative images, personal items, and found objects of diverse materials- all chosen and arranged via her intuitive aesthetic sensibilities. The result was art making that aligned with her imaginative processes as a poet.
Her husband Bob holds most dear about Iris: her irrepressibly loving, empathic and kind nature – as a daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, relative, friend, colleague, mentor, therapist, dancer and mensch.