197'
Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Thursday,' April, 15,
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Thursday, April 15,, 1974
One dance
is
worth
I.I
By DIANE ELLIOT
Watching Merce Cunningham
work and perform this week was
like coming home. I had read
about him, poured over pic-
tures of his dances, even seen
his recent film Assemblage. I
sensed, in his unswerving pur-
suit of a unique time-space ap-
proach to movement regardless
of critical praise or blame, a
fineness and an intensity which
I found intellectually appeal-
ing. But no matter how well one
learns to read between the
critic's lines, the art of the
dance must be seen to be known.
When he began to choregraph
almost thirty years ago, Cun-
ningham was the "enfant terri-
ble" of the avant-garde, known
as a virtuoso performer but
viewed as something of a crack-
pot in his own ideas about the
dance. He had come from Wash-
ington state to work with Mar-
tha Graham and had quickly
earned the status of solist in
her company; but, alienated by
her dramatic, emotional a p -
proach to dance, he soon
branched out and began to work
on his own. Shortly thereafter
he began a career-long associa-
tion .'with composer-innovator
John Cage, whose time-oriented
concept of music and interest in
sound for its own sake paralleled
and complemented Cunning-
ham's time-oriented interest in
movement for its own sake.
For Cunningham has always
been concerned with motion as
the meeting of time and space;
he shapes through movement,
not in relationship to music but
by strictly controlling the time
span of movement sequences, of-
ten with the help of a stop-
watch.
And sure enough, at Mon-
day afternoon's rehearsal, Merce
stood on the edge of the Hill
Auditorium stage, stopwatch in
hand, as his dancers ran through
the "games" and "deals" of
Canfield, a dance structured
upon the game of solitaire. Later
that evening Canfield would be
performed for the lecture de-
monstration' to the accompani-
ment of loud, grating sounds
produced on the spot by the
company's musical entourage,
John Cage, David Tudor, a n d
Gordon Mumma. But during the
rehearsal the only sounds were
the dancers' feet on the stage,
their breathing, and Merce's
rhythmic clapping and finger-
snapping, which is included in
performances of the dance. Ex-
cept for this beat, the movement
bore no relationship to any kind
of externally produced sound.
Today a younger generation of
4artists take for granted the pre-
mises upon which Cunningham
works - the integral relation-
ship of time and space in move-
ment, the dissociation of dance
from music, the use of some
chance procedures in organizing
his work. His dances are ac-
claimed by audiences and critics,
although many feel that t h e
movement should be perform-
ed in silence, that the sound
produced by Cage and company
detracts from the "sound" of
the dances themselves. Critical
approval has been slow in com-
ing; the company, established in
about 1951, received it first ser-
ious critical attention while on
tour in London in 1964.
Cunningham consistently pre-
sents us with the stark poetry of
movement. his. images some-
times strikingly specific within
the context of a dance, but more
often ambivalent.
For t h e company's lecture-
demonstration, the dancers per-
formed parts of Canfield, the
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musicians made sounds which
included a kind of back-of-the-
throat choking noise as well as
electronic whines and crackles,
while Cunningham occasionally
stepped out of the movement to
state in spare sentences how he
had made some of the choices
in the choreography. The total
image served as a metaphor for
all of Cunningham's work: the
dancers moving constantly in
space, breaking up intricate and
difficult passages with walks
and runs, motion punctuated at
random moments both by sounds
from the 'pit and by -the quiet
a u t h o r i t y of Cunningham's
voice. The Cunningham danc-
ers compel an audience's inter-
est by the very intensity of their
own engrossment.
For the formal concert Tues-
day evening the company per-
formed three works ranging in
chronology from one of the old-
est pieces still in the active rep-
ertory, How to Pass, Kick, Fall,
and Run (1965), to the anewest,
Objects, choreographed last fall.
I was late and walked into the
middle of Rainforest (1968);
dancers in ragged white cos-
tumes move in an eerie world of
helium-filled silvered pillows
floating at different levels,
some hanging out over the first
rows of the audience. The ele-
ments of a Cunningham work
a r e juxtaposed by chance -
sound, movement, and decor is
each carefully worked out in its
own right, though they are nev-
er coordinated with a dramatic
concept in mind. But the effect
may be, as in Rainforest, strik-
ingly dramatic, a vision of des-
olation, of pathos, of human
isolation; an atmosphere is cre-
ated in which the dancers'
movements take on special sig-
nificance. Associations opiral
out from his rich, open-ended
images.
The title of Objects refers
both to the moveable frames of
metal piping covered with black
cloth which the dancers wheel
onto the stage, and to the
dancers themselves, to the qual-
ity of the relationships between
them. In a series of meetings
and partings, the dancers form
duets, trios, quartets, flurries of
'a tnoi
movement giving way to -till-
nesses. Solely through motion,
without suggestion of character,
a relationship between t w o
dancers is sketched. In one ra-
pid sequence Cunningham and
Sandra Neels manage to sug-
gest the whole course of a love
affair with a few vacuous, wind-
up doll gestures: she touches
his arm repeatedly, he places
her on the floor, rolls over her
once, then points several times
to an imaginary watch. Thg pbo-
ple in the dance use, touch and
move each other as objects.
Humor and pathos is there, in-
herent in the gestures and the
timing. The dancers' breathing,
the squeak of bare feet on wood-
en floor combined with the var-
iously pitched ticking sounds
and silences of Alvin Lucier's
Vespers to provide a gentle,
poignant accompaniment f a r
the dance.
A different atmosphere pre-
vailes in How to Pass, K i c k,
Fall, and Run. The dancers,
dressed in brightly colored sweat
shirts and socks engage in en-
ergetic athletic movement while
sand i
John Cage, enscounced at a ta-
ble stage left, reads humorous
stories and sips champagne. The
effect is somewhat mind-shat-
tering, for often Cage's absurd
juxtaposition of quotes and an-
ecdotes is jarringly incongruous
with the mood inherent in the
movement of the dance. Cage's
words tend to overpower t h e
images created on stage, and I
suspect that only the parts of
the dance performed when Cage
is silent really register. What-
ever Cunningham had in mind,
the result is a joyous, high-
spirited dance, often hilariious,
sometimes wistful, always inter-
esting.
Cunningham's abstract move-
ment, achieved not by extend-
ing the human b o d y but by
stripping each dancer down to
his essential self, takes shape
through Cunningham's unique
movement abilities and those of
his superbly trained dancers
Cunningham himself moves like
no other dancer; high-speed,
volatile, preoccupied, with quick
cords
changes of direction cut by sud-
den silence. A dancers' persona
depends n o t on temperament
but muscles structure, techni-
cal control, energy level. While
Merce stands out above the rest
of the company as an individ-
ual persona, all his dancers be-
come individuals on s t a g e
through the concrete language
of movement. They are a group
of people who speak with their
bodies instead of hearts, mouths,
or minds.
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UTDOOR CONCERT
FANNERIO
APRIL
16
of
presents-
9:0 PM.
Oscars: Pi~ckingwhat might be
StcttStratton,''I
Moran
-FREE IN THE BURSLEY BOWL ON NORTH CAMPUS
In case of adverse weather, it will be held in Bursley
E Ill
By NEAL GABLER
One of the minor dispensa-
tions of being a low-brow film
reviewer (Can you imagine Sar-
ris predicting the Oscars?) is
the opportunity, come mid-Ap-
ril, to spread one's ego all over
the page. While people might
not want to admit it, just about
everybody has given s o m e
thought to which picture, actor,
actress, director etc. will carry
off Hollywood's 'highest hon-
ors,' but only a reviewer can put
down his prognostications in
black and white, and only a re-
viewer can receive those little
accolades friends award for pre-
science.
A fellow reviewer said recent-
ly that when it comes to the
Academy Awards you can't be
too cynical. While there's a lot
of truth in t h a t advice, I'm
afraid the Hollywood mentality
is a bit more inscrutable. ?Fact :
The worst of the five nominees
almost never wins the top x'rize.
Oh sure, a Sound of Music
sneaks by every nowand then,
but the Academy's taste runs
more to the pseudo than to out-
right abomination. That's why
big costume pictures, larded
through with lots and lots of
polysyllabic words nestled in
thick Englis4 accents, are al-
ways getting nominated. Cos-
tume pictures look important.
It's with a sense, then, of be-
ing witness to the end of an era
that I scan this year's list of
best pictures. There are no lav-
ish, quasi-Shakesperian spectac-
les anywhere to be found, and
the closest one comes to b i g
booming drama is Patton,' with
its wide-screen, costumes, ex-
tras, tanks and words. It's the
kind of thing Fred Zinneman
might have adapted from an
adaptation by James Goldman
of a Shakespeare play, had the
ONL.Y
Bard lived through World War
II.
But Patton has more going for
it than its size. At a time when
the Academy is infected with a
kind of Stanley Kramer social
consciousness (maybe t h o , e
months of collecting unemploy-
ment have gotten to them),
Patton seems to speak to ur
moral sensibilities, though most
people can't seem to figure out
which side it flops down' on.
The other contenders span
the usual range from schlock to
decent drama, the latter an an-
nual concession to the pointy-
heads. Of course, the pointy-
heads never win, and though
Five Easy Pieces would be my
personal choice among tnis
group, I have few doubts thar, it
will wind up alongside Kane,
Bonnie and Clyde and 2001 as
an alsoran. M*A*S*H, which
bullied its way to the top by
sheer popularity, comes on a
mite too strong with the con-
sciousness; the Academy pre-
fers something more tepid, like
In the Heat of V h e Night or
Midnight Cowboy, or Patton.
Schlock h a s one unabashed
standard-bearer in Airport, and
one more circumspect nominee
in Love Story. Airport seems too
ingenuous even for the Acad-
emy, but Love Story is a dif-
ferent matter; it's sooooo sim-
ple you can almost mistake it
for poetry . . . like Rod Me-
See PICKING, Page 8
1*121.. j
1
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