Merce Cunningham's Miami Ocean
In retrospect, a review of Miami's Weeklong Celebration of Merce Cunningham from February 2007 reads like an elegy for the late legend of modern dance who passed away last Sunday.
Photo Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Photo by Tony Dougherty.
In Merce Cunningham’s "Ocean," man and nature collide in a ninety-minute seascape that probes the human faculty of conceptualization as deeply as it plummets the tides, waves, and swells of Mother Nature herself.
This final collaboration between Cunningham and the late John Cage, two of the modern era’s most important innovators, reveals the trajectory of a concept from visualization to its inevitable nothingness, as the last dancer vanishes behind a curtain in concert with the final tick of a digital timer hanging above the stage.
With movements based on the 64 phrases from the I-Ching, the piece is divided into 19 sections and features fourteen dancers. This company, diverse in ethnicity and age, appears to effortlessly insert itself into a higher order almost Grecian in stature. Turning, twisting, lifting and lowering into sculptural poses, sometimes their bodies intertwine; other times, they simply stand in frozen solitude.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this piece which debuted in 1992, was to recognize how undeniably balletic Cunningham’s choreography is: perfectly turned out plies and attitudes, sweeping rond de jambes and athletically executed pirouettes -- the imprint of classical ballet is fascinating to behold in movements so unmistakably and uniquely Cunningham.
These dancers are divine human specimens working in accord. Solos, duets, trios, quartets and group work unfurl at a hypnotic pace from within Andrew Culver’s magnificent orchestral composition and David Tudor’s brooding electronic soundscape. As the dancers’ sleek body suits grow darker and darker and we plummet into the oceanic depths, we never lose sight of the mind behind the thing – and it adds brilliance to each movement.
While not thematically confrontational, Ocean feels spatially challenging. The long sculptural pauses and Cunningham’s "choreography in the round" invite the viewer to explore alternate routes in and out of the dance experience.
This was the closing piece of "Merce in Miami," the Carnival Center for the Performing Art’s week-long celebration of Cunningham’s work. This exacting display of technical precision, resiliency, and stamina is the foundation for today’s avant-garde. While many may prefer to call the work of innovators like Cage and Cunningham an "experience," rather than a "performance," Thursday night’s Ocean was most definitely an event, a historical one.
Review reprinted from Category305.
Photo Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Photo by Tony Dougherty.
In Merce Cunningham’s "Ocean," man and nature collide in a ninety-minute seascape that probes the human faculty of conceptualization as deeply as it plummets the tides, waves, and swells of Mother Nature herself.
This final collaboration between Cunningham and the late John Cage, two of the modern era’s most important innovators, reveals the trajectory of a concept from visualization to its inevitable nothingness, as the last dancer vanishes behind a curtain in concert with the final tick of a digital timer hanging above the stage.
With movements based on the 64 phrases from the I-Ching, the piece is divided into 19 sections and features fourteen dancers. This company, diverse in ethnicity and age, appears to effortlessly insert itself into a higher order almost Grecian in stature. Turning, twisting, lifting and lowering into sculptural poses, sometimes their bodies intertwine; other times, they simply stand in frozen solitude.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this piece which debuted in 1992, was to recognize how undeniably balletic Cunningham’s choreography is: perfectly turned out plies and attitudes, sweeping rond de jambes and athletically executed pirouettes -- the imprint of classical ballet is fascinating to behold in movements so unmistakably and uniquely Cunningham.
These dancers are divine human specimens working in accord. Solos, duets, trios, quartets and group work unfurl at a hypnotic pace from within Andrew Culver’s magnificent orchestral composition and David Tudor’s brooding electronic soundscape. As the dancers’ sleek body suits grow darker and darker and we plummet into the oceanic depths, we never lose sight of the mind behind the thing – and it adds brilliance to each movement.
While not thematically confrontational, Ocean feels spatially challenging. The long sculptural pauses and Cunningham’s "choreography in the round" invite the viewer to explore alternate routes in and out of the dance experience.
This was the closing piece of "Merce in Miami," the Carnival Center for the Performing Art’s week-long celebration of Cunningham’s work. This exacting display of technical precision, resiliency, and stamina is the foundation for today’s avant-garde. While many may prefer to call the work of innovators like Cage and Cunningham an "experience," rather than a "performance," Thursday night’s Ocean was most definitely an event, a historical one.
Review reprinted from Category305.