Split Sides

A FEW WEEKS AGO I made a pilgrimage to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to see the second to last performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Like me, many of you might think traveling to Brooklyn is on the same adventure level as traveling to Tasmania, but it can be easily reached by subway or a shuttle bus especially for arts lovers who can see the impressive lineup of theatre, music, dance, and film that BAM offers.

At the time of Merce Cunningham’s death in 2009, it was announced that the company would be on a 2 year “Legacy Tour” to show his wide repertoire of modern dance–which had begun in 1953 when he founded the company–and then disband, not to be seen again. This was in response to work that seemed to go on ad nausea after the choreographers were gone. For a man who led the way to the cutting edge of modern dance, it seemed only natural that, when he could no longer make new work, the work was over.

The history of the Cunningham Company is a sorted one and always divided by people who think his work is genius and those who can’t stand it. Once during a Spoleto performance nearly 20 years ago, I watched as people got up in droves and walked out of the theatre. It happened at different moments in the performance and in different numbers of people, and I began to think that Cunningham was choreographing these exits just as he had choreographed the dancers of stage. Of course, I had stayed as I loved what I saw and had been a student at his school after college, immersing myself in a technique that was always challenging, sometimes painfully so, but kept the body thinking and, by default, the heart, too.

Pond Way

The BAM performance offered three dances I had never seen live and some of them only in filmed excerpts or photographs, so it was a treasure trove for a dancer with an interest in its history. I noticed at once that the audience were enthusiasts like me, so I felt sure there would be no deserters during the performance which was comforting and exciting like a pilgrimage should be.

Pond Way was a dance from 1998 with music by Brian Eno, decor by Roy Lichtenstein, and costumes by Suzanne Gallo. In the usual Cunningham chance manner, the collaborators worked independently and did not confer on the overall effect of movement, music, decor, and costume–but  unveiled what they had created at the last serendipitous minute. This works perfectly for Ponds Way which depicts the natural world at any pond where flora and fauna exist independently, but in unison add to the overall environment. The Zen-like atmosphere replete with stillness and unpredictable rhythmic phrasing made me feel like a voyeur on a nature scene. The dancers were brilliant in their razor sharp clarity.  Even their usual austere faces hinted at joy as they danced in the delicious technique where impossibly intricate footwork was topped with  ever changing and counter-intuitive upper-body positions.

RainForest

The next piece was the famous RainForest from 1968 with silver helium filled pillows designed by Andy Warhol, an auditory-challenged composition by David Tudor, and lighting by Aaron Copp. I had always wanted to see this on stage and never had, and it was the effect of the floating obstacles that float freely through the dancer’s space which was the most interesting element. It is when the dancers encounter the silver pillows that this chance shines. This intersection of unrelated entities becomes at once relative and wether the movement smacks the pillow with power to change the floaters pathway evermore, or softly bounces off a shoulder or curved back–like thoughts which move unhindered through the mind–these become the most stunning moments.

Last was Split Sides from 2003 with two composers (Radiohead and Signor Ros), 2 set designers (Robert Heishman and Catherine Yass),  and 2 costume designs by James Hall. To introduce the piece, all artists and dancers came to the stage and each element (including choreography made in 2 parts) was chosen by a flip of a coin–which offers a myriad of probabilities in terms of what dance section would be performed to which music with which set design in what costumes! This spontaneously-generated creation was a delight to observe and the dancers were obviously charged with the constantly changing set of rules. The dance showed Cunningham’s intense playfulness and several standout solos and duets illuminated the off-centeredness and balance that requires great strength and control.

It is ironic that a man whose work was guided by chance had such a firm hold on where avante garde performance should be and what standards were expected. When the curtain comes down for a final time on the stroke of midnight at the company’s performance on the Upper East Side at The Armory it will be the end of an era, but both choreographers and dancers will forever be influenced by Merce Cunningham’s ideas about dance as art.

AT THE END of July, Merce Cunningham died at the age of 90 after seven decades as a dancer and visionary choreographer. “Merce,” as he was affectionately referred to, performed with the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor dance companies. Along with them, he became a pioneer for modern dance, but he was also an innovator who made work that was altogether different, without anyone’s influence.

I remember being a student in the Cunningham school after graduating with a dance degree from Middlebury College in Vermont. I decided to hit the dance Mecca of New York to study with people I had been hearing about and watching on stage. The school was in the funky, downtown Westbeth neighborhood. A few years before, I had received a nod from Merce at a college dance festival, giving me a summer scholarship to the American Dance Festival in my junior year.

The studio was breathtaking for a dance student—sacred ground for art to thrive—in a vast, empty space with windows open to the city’s roof tops, interrupted by wall-length mirrors where dancers scrutinized their alignment, flexibility, and shapes which only Merce and his dancers were fully capable of.

I remember one day in particular—while battling a tendu combination with directional changes that only a Mensa type could understand—when Merce emerged and began to walk the perimeter of the dance floor. As if in a slow motion, his feet barely left the floor due to the arthritis plaguing his body. But even as a slightly hunched older man, he assumed an animal-like awareness that could be seen in a panther of the same age. I stopped and stared as if witnessing greatness.

The dancers and teachers at Merce’s school were not warm and fuzzy. They bordered on cold and anti-social. I didn’t make friends or get many words of encouragement, and this is what translated in his dances as well. Critics have often deemed his work impersonal and unemotional. It had, in fact, been one of his early manifestos not to make dances like Graham’s “psycho-dramas,” but to make movement for the sake of movement. This dancer (me) needed a little more heart, but I was always drawn to the technical virtuosity of the dancing. Like ballet, Merce loved specific lines and shapes, vertical torsos, spit-fire foot work, and changes in dynamics that were sharp as a knife.

The nature of his work was based on chance and there was no apparent narrative. This meant that by flipping a coin, rolling dice, and later using computer software, any combination of movement, music, and stage design or stage space could be scrambled to produce a result that could not be conceived by the human mind on its own. The Zen-like acceptance and spontaneity was undetermined until sometimes the last minute. I have heard members of his company say that, even as they waited off stage they were uncertain of the movement sequence or the sound or which direction to face. This would make most dancers run for the hills!

During one of his company’s performances, several audience members abruptly left the theatre, maybe because John Cage’s score included the banging of an ancient radiator, or maybe they just didn’t understand it and didn’t want to waste their time. But I couldn’t help but smile and think that Merce choreographed these exits as well—that this was all part of the experience!

Whatever you thought of Merce’s work, it was usually intriguing, beautiful, and avant garde at a time when everything had been done before. His artistic questioning and his longtime methods have influenced many young dancers and choreographers. The small world of modern dance is sad to see him exit the stage.