Taking a chance with chance - Famed choreographer and his company conclude residency with two performances
The Davis Enterprise - April 24, 2008
Author: Pamela Trokanski; Enterprise dance critic
"To think what no one has thought about that which everyone sees"
— Schopenhauer
Request a definition of the word "dance," and most people will say something to the effect that dance is a series of steps arranged to music.
For most people, historically, dance has been just that. Musicality has almost always been judged a crucial aspect of the art form: from the ethnic dances of the global community, which rely on the various instruments and languages of each particular culture; to any nation's social dance traditions; to the technical training for performance in ballet, jazz and modern.
And then came Merce Cunningham.
But wait; I've gotten ahead of myself.
Let us first remember that modern dance began as an artistic revolution against the existing forms of its day. Isadora Duncan, long considered by most the "mother" of modern dance, was the first dance "deconstructionist." In her quest to create a new vocabulary for movement, she returned to the basic locomotor movements: walk, run, jump, leap and fall.
Out of these basics, she created movement and a methodology for moving.
In the tradition of modern dance, each choreographer seeks to contribute a unique personal vision. Each technical style has its own philosophy and vocabulary, along with physical skills built around that viewpoint. With Martha Graham, it was all about contraction and release: movement springing from the pelvis. The technical training and vocabulary of her dancers reflect that discipline.
Katherine Dunham was both a dancer and anthropologist, whose personal vision led her to further embrace her African-American roots through her studies of Afro-Caribbean dance forms. She earned the title "matriarch of Afro-Modern dance" after creating an innovative technical style that drew upon the flexible spine and torso, articulated pelvis, isolations and poly-rhythms of African dance, also blended with her training in ballet and modern.
Many other choreographers and innovators developed their own unique pathways to dance.
And then came Merce Cunningham, with his ability to envision a different course entirely.
Cunningham was a soloist for years with the Martha Graham Company, before giving his own company's first performance at Black Mountain College in 1953. His work with musicologist John Cage, however, and the development of the use of "chance," brought about the innovations for which Cunningham has become famous.
One of Cunningham's gifts to the world of dance was to break away from traditional narrative structure. Dancers no longer represented an idea, an emotion or a particular person. Pieces displayed no development of a storyline: no introduction of theme or movement that built to a climatic moment, or resolution from that climax. In its place came an embracement of pure movement.
To that end, and inspired by the publication of the "I Ching" in the 1950s, Cunningham developed a method for creating choreographic sequences that evolved not out of his personal manipulation of the movement phrases, but — so to speak — on "the roll of the dice."
Partnered with Cage, Cunningham developed the most controversial aspect of their work: the relationship, or nonrelationship, of dance to music. They refined a method of working in which the use of music developed independently from the dance.
In the beginning, they shared an agreement regarding the time structure coming together at certain significant points, but otherwise developing independently. Later, the independence became total. The dancers learned the work in silence, although timed with a stopwatch, and often didn't hear the music until the first performance or dress rehearsal.
Cage's work also held elements of the unexpected, as his vision was to challenge the perception of what constituted music, utilizing what might be called "found sound." (Think of several radios played at once, and the resultant sound being whatever combination of melodies and talk were broadcast at that precise moment from different stations.)
Cage believed that everyday sounds could become incorporated into compositions, and proposed that even silence was full of ambient sounds that could be considered music.
"4'33," " one of his most famous and controversial pieces, consists of a pianist sitting at a piano without playing, creating an opportunity for the audience to become aware of all the other sounds that fill the space.
This separation of dance from music — the disallowing of one to inform the other — was upsetting to many. But it obviously worked for others: The New York Times has hailed Merce Cunningham Dance Company performances as "riveting enactments of the chaos theory."
During a recent phone interview, Robert Swinston — company dancer and teacher, and assistant to the choreographer since 1992 — told me that he was drawn to the work out of "a desire for change and to move more expansively." He had been in New York City for 10 years, and had worked with, among others, the Graham Apprentice Company and the Limon Company, and was a Juilliard graduate with a degree in dance.
Cunningham's work intrigued him, because he saw a lot that he didn't understand at that point.
"I was interested in developing a wider vocabulary," Swinston recalled.
When I questioned Swinston about theatergoers perhaps wanting to assign meaning to dance, he talked about how an audience can appreciate tap dancing without needing to have it tell a story, and that any dance movement can be enjoyed as pure movement.
"Cunningham's work takes the onus off the audience member to think a certain thing," Swinston insisted.
Quoting Marcel Duchamp, he added that "the audience completes the performance."
"The whole idea was to liberate the dance from needing to have meaning. Any meaning that it might have would be whatever an individual happened to assign it."
I remind myself that Sigmund Freud once said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Perhaps, sometimes, a dance is just a dance.
Cunningham, now 89, no longer performs with the company. His final performance, according to Swinston, was in "Occasion Piece," which he danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1999, at the age of 80.
Cunningham is widely recognized as one of the greatest living choreographers, and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He and his company offer that rare experience: an opportunity to see a new kind of choreography, via pieces that are developed through the chance method, and so are specific to each evening's performance.
Now, here's a crucial point:
This method of creating dances cannot be confused with some sort of improvised phrasing. The dances are strictly choreographed and strictly timed. They aren't improvisation of any sort. These are highly trained and technically strong dancers who know exactly what they're going to do before they go onstage.
In addition to the powerful leg work that's necessary for Cunningham technique, the dancers need the flexible spines and full range of movement that allow them to maneuver in any direction with jumps, leaps, turns and balances. Actually, in addition to the advanced level of technique necessary for a professional, they also need to have an advanced level of muscle memory that allows them to move together or separately for a specific time period, without the benefit of traditional music cues.
The company's weeklong residency included a free "Family Day" activity on Sunday, which allowed children and their parents to experiment with Cunningham's basic movement vocabulary and unique choreographic principles. On Wednesday, the Mondavi Center Studio Theatre hosted Cunningham archivist David Vaugh, along with UCD faculty members Della Davidson, Laurie San Martin, Bob Ostertag and others, in a discussion of creativity.
The residency culminates with two evenings of performances. On Friday, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is scheduled to present "MinEvent" and "Split Sides." The former, with live music by the Kronos Quartet, consists of dances arranged for that particular performance and place, with the possibility of several separate activities taking place simultaneously.
"Split Sides," with recorded music by Radiohead and Sigur Ros, employs the roll of dice to determine which of five different costumes, décor and music will be incorporated into each piece.
On Saturday, the company will present "BIPED" and "eyeSpace." The first, one of Cunningham's most acclaimed works, incorporates a striking technique called video motion capture where, through a digital computer mapping of the body, we can see the shapes of the body made by movement.
"It's a gorgeous piece," Swinston said.
The animation in his voice, while discussing this work, conveyed his excitement all the way from the other side of the continent.
"eyeSpace" is an interactive experience during which audience members listen to Mikel Rouse's score via their own iPods, or with iPod Shuffles loaned to them by the company.
As an artist, Cunningham did think "what no one had thought about that which everyone had seen." He successfully imagined a new way to create dance as a thing unto itself: movement freed from meaning and a specific rhythmic relationship to music.
As an audience member, you'll be able to experience dance in an entirely new way, presented by a company that has remained on the cutting edge of contemporary dance.
Should you take this chance?
The odds are good that you won't regret it.
(This story appears here courtesy of The Davis Enterprise. For more from the Enterprise, visit http://www.davisenterprise.com/.)
