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The Cunningham Revolution: Technique, Not Theater
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13070 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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11 / 1987 |
2,989 Words |
| Author
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Don McDonagh
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Martha Graham put high drama and psychological complexity into modern dance and Merce Cunningham took them out. In place of personality, he emphasized physical execution. He snipped the linear thread of dramatic development and allowed simultaneous, independent dance events to occur.
As he himself wrote in Changes, "The logic of one event coming as responsive to another seems inadequate now. We look at and listen to several at once. For dancing it was all those words about meaning that got in the way. Right now they are broken up. They do not quite fit, we have to shuffle and deal them out again."
Music, which normally provides the pulse for dancing, was changed to an atmospheric occurrence of the same duration as the dance itself. Décor, costuming, and lighting were left in the hands of artists who were told the "climate" of the work but were no part of the evolving choreography. The resulting stage presentation was not so much an artistic collaboration as an individualistic aesthetic coexistence.
In the hands of any other choreographer, the results would have been chaos. In Cunningham's hands, they have caused a revolution in the way audiences, dancers, and choreographers look at and conceive of dance.
This summer he presented his 130th new dance, Carousal (rhymes with arousal), at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts. Jacob's Pillow, a farm acquired by the late Ted Shawn as a home for his pioneering all-male company in 1932, now boasts a rustically intimate theater with full-length portraits of Shawn and his wife, Ruth St. Denis. She was best know for her oriental-influenced dances and he for his forceful, dynamic compositions for men.
Cunningham decided to create a romp of a dance for his thirteen-member company that would incorporate passages that suggested the work of Shawn and St. Denis and their sense of theater. Of course he would do it in his own way, choreographing duets, trios, and unison passages for the ensemble and placing them on stage with the same care that a collage is assembled.
For décor he decided that the theater itself was the best possible setting, so he exposed the wooden-beamed back of the stage to emphasize the rustic aspect of the locale. His lighting designer, Dove Bradshaw, added a theatrical touch by running a strip of tiny white bulbs along the back that when lit suggested the border lights of a regular theater. She also designed a striking oriental-style costume for one dancer by cutting out the back of a pair of long johns from waist to ankle. Worn over tights it had a definite harem-pants look.
As is the case in most Cunningham dances, there were many entrances and exits for the dancers, who generally wore casual looking, hand-me-down styled patterned shirts with solid-colored tights. The look was that of a company that had costumed itself at a garage sale.
Two long grey tubes were carried on and off by the dancers, who arranged them to form small dancing areas in which other dancers would perform. In one humorous passage, the entire company lay prone with their chins resting on one tube as a couple danced a brief "star" duet. As quickly as the dancing
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