Daria Halprin (born December 30, 1948) is an American somatic-expressive arts therapist, author, teacher dancer, and former actress known primarily for her performances in three films of the late 1960s and early 1970s and as founding director of Tamalpa Institute.
Early life
Daria Halprin was born in a
Jewish family and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the daughter of San Francisco-based landscape architect
Lawrence Halprin and choreographer
Anna Halprin (née Schuman),
who, in the 1950s, was one of the Western pioneers of using dance as a healing art. Like her mother, Halprin studied dance, and in the mid 1960s, began acting in film. Her paternal grandmother was Zionist leader
Rose Halprin.
Acting career
In 1968, she appeared in
Revolution, a documentary by Jack O'Connell. Shot mainly in San Francisco, the film depicted the
counterculture movement and featured a series of interviews with that city’s
hippie residents.
Halprin was chosen by director Michelangelo Antonioni for the lead in his second English-language feature, Zabriskie Point.
In 1972, Halprin appeared in John Flynn's thriller The Jerusalem File. Also in 1972, she married actor/director Dennis Hopper. The marriage produced one child, Ruthanna Hopper, and the couple divorced in 1976.
Later life
In the 1970s, Halprin developed an interest in creative arts therapy. In 1978, she and her mother Anna founded the Tamalpa Institute
and developed the
Halprin Process. She has written
The Expressive Body in Life, Art and Therapy and
Coming Alive: The Creative Expression Method, and she was a contributing author to
Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy.
Filmography
