I’m trying something new… Monday’s Mentor. Contemporary dancer’s are constantly striving to create new movement, something unique and yet compelling. In this constant flux of “newness”, it must be admitted that none of us lives in an artistic vacuum. Not only are we influenced by our own personal environment, the techniques we are exposed to as we learn to dance are one end of a long line of influences, history and artistic evolution. In a Monday slot, I want to examine those dancers or choreographers who have made something of dance, past and present, who have either directly or indirectly influenced me.
It’s my attempt to learn sideways. Classes have been exposing me to styles I am both familiar with and very new to, this is my attempt to mentally expand my horizons…
And thus the first mentor… Merce Cunningham. His company are currently on their last tour, ever. I was lucky enough to see this man a few years ago, wheeled onto stage in his last stage presence before he passed away at the age of 90 years old. I felt that with these last performances, I should look into Cunningham’s style just a little more…
American born, Merce Cunningham has frequently been referred to as one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th Century. Beginning his dance career at 20 years old, he had a six year tenure as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company. This was the platform from which he would jump and work toward the things that make him most admirable – his work as a innovative choreographer. Over the course of his career, he created over 150 dances, and over 800 “Events”.
I’ve had mixed experience with Cunningham technique. My first exposure to it as an style stripped of other influences was in university. Coming from a ballet background, I enjoyed the sense of structure to the technique, the repetition of exercises and movements can cultivate a benchmark for personal improvement. What I did find difficult about this technique was executing it physically. There is such a thing as a “Cunningham curve”, bending the body forward, creating a large “C” shape from the head to the pelvis. Executing this curve with a harmony of line (not bending from the waist or other points in the spine) is more challenging than it seems and can often depend upon the bony structure of the spine. My spine doesn’t agree with this curve, and though I enjoyed the movement potential of this style, I couldn’t reach a peaceful place conducting the movement.
Bringing myself back to this style today, however, is lending me a new appreciation of Cunningham’s principles. As a style and technique, sitting under the umbrella of “modern dance”, Cunningham is influenced heavily by ballet. The rigid structure and the importance of line creates a style more akin to those balletic lines than the freedom of contemporary dance. The admirable and compelling idea behind Cunningham as a choreographer is how he has considered the body, and choreography as a practice.
Cunningham clinically divided the body, how it can move, in and of itself, and through space. He worked with a practicality of the way the body functions (his use of parallel to begin exercises, creating a harmony of line), the necessity of repetition in a warm up and he used this logical progression to design dance classes. More innovative was his approach to choreography, and it remained thus until his passing.
John Cage, as many musician know, was an experimentalist within the realm of music. What a lot of musician fail to learn, however, is that his life partner and often-time collaborator, Merce Cunningham, arrived at similar ideas within the realm of dance. Both believed that the common element of time need be the only constant thing, and used chance measures to determine how a performance was put together. Cunningham would use chance methods to determine costumes, sequences of movement phrases, and even musical accompaniment. These decisions were reached by any chance means (throwing a dice, etc) the night of the performance, often on stage, before the curtain went up. It’s an innovative approach that always assures something new and unique, and something that has not, and cannot, be replicated by another company.
Watching Cunningham’s works, without a conceptual drive, I don’t have the same overwhelming sense of understanding. To view one of his works though, is a technical extravaganza that is not without it’s sense of compulsion. I truly admire the dancer’s discipline, and rigorous execution of steps. His is a style reliant on mental ferocity rather than reliance of a physical memory.
What I want to take away from Cunningham is his ability to confidently define the body and it’s limits. I feel that in accepting the capacity of physicality, I should be able to arrive at a movement potential that doesn’t seem as daunting as the idea of infinite potential. Cunningham’s engagement with dance is something that should also be admired – his staying power was not because it was the only thing he knew how to do, it’s because his passion drove him that far. If you get the chance, have a look at TV episodes he created: Monday’s With Merce. It’s obvious how much he still loved his art form, and how genuine his engagement with it was. I feel as though I’m watching a very happy couple who have had a very long and loving marriage.
But even beyond Cunningham’s ability to look at the body was his ability to look at the creation of movement. He was one of the first to experiment with dance on film in the 1970’s, and choreograph with a computer program DanceForms during the latter part of his career. He explored motion capture technology for BIPED and created billboards encouraging SMS’s of movements for him to use in a new work. He wasn’t afraid to look at new ways, external to himself, to engage with dance.
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