Diaghilev - Cunningham 1974

7/25/2019 Diaghilev - Cunningham 1974

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Diaghilev/CunninghamAuthor(s): David VaughanSource: Art Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Winter, 1974-1975), pp. 135-140Published by: College Art Association

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2/7

DaghevCunn

DAVID VAUGHAN

Diaghilev

would have loved

Cunningham.

Besides

admiring

him

as

an

artist he

would have

respected

the seriousness and

discipline

of his

company,

the

spare

wit and

style

of

Rauschenberg's

costumes and

lighting,

the

consistent

invention

of the

choreography

and the

provocative

strangeness

of

John

Cage's

musical

accompaniments.

Above

all,

his acute

artistic

antennae would have tingled at the sense that Cunningham was

talking

in

the

language

of

today.

-Alexander

Bland,

The

Observer

(London),

2

August

1964

It

might

be

said

that it was

almost

by

accident that

Sergei

Diaghilev

became

the animator of the most

important

dance

company

the

world

has

ever known-as

though

ballet chose

Diaghilev,

rather than his

choosing

ballet as

the medium

through

which his ideas would

be

transmitted

to

the world.

Although

he

had had

some

musical

training

he

was

in the

beginning

essentially

a dilettante

who edited

a

luxurious

magazine

called Mir Iskustva

(The

World

of

Art)

and

organized

extraordinary

exhibitions.

For

a while

he

also

edited

the

Annual of the

Imperial

Theaters and at

the turn of the

century,

when

several members

of

the

group

of

painters

centered

around

his

magazine

planned

a

new

production

of

Delibes'

ballet

Sylvia,

he

acted as

intermediary

between them

and the

administration.

The

initiative

for

this

production

came

from

Alexandre

Benois,

the real balletomane of

the

group:

he

was

to

design

one

act and

Constantin

Korovin

another,

with

costumes

by

Leon

Bakst

and

Valentin

Serov. In those

days

ballet

scenery

was

not

designed

by

artists,

it

was

executed

by

scene-painters.

Unfortunately,

the

project collapsed

after

Diaghilev

had

a

disagreement

with

the

administration

over

who

was

to receive credit for

it,

and

he

was dismissed.

(The

walls

had been

breached, however,

and

the

Mir

Iskustva

painters

did

subsequently design various productions for the Imperial

Theaters.)

A

few

years

later

Diaghilev

conceived

for

himself

the

mission

of

showing

the art of

Russia

to western

Europe:

in

1906

he took an exhibition

of

Russian

painting

to

Paris,

the

following year

he

organized

a

series

of concerts

of

Russian

music

there,

and

in 1908

he

presented Chaliapin

in

Boris

Godunov

at the

Paris

Opera.

That

Diaghilev

was still not

particularly

interested

in

the ballet

was

made clear

by

his

program

note on

Tchaikovsky

for one

of the

concerts,

which

omitted to mention

that the

composer

had

written three

full-length

ballets as

well as

operas

and

orchestral

and chamber

music.

Nevertheless,

the

obvious

next

step

after Godunov

was

to

bring

the

St.

Petersburg

ballet

to

Paris

the

following year.

Even

so,

the

great

Saison Russe

of

1909 was

a

season

of

ballet

and

opera,

and

it was

expected

that

Chaliapin

in

Rimsky-Korsakov's

Ivan the Terrible

(Pskovitianka)

would be

the

biggest

draw. The ballet

repertory

was thrown

together

hurriedly

and

consisted

of

reworked versions

of

ballets

that

had

already

been

given

in

Russia. As

we

know,

it was the ballet

that

caused

the

sensation-the

dancing

of

Pavlova,

Karsavina,

Nijinsky,

and Bolm

and the decors

by

Bakst, Benois,

and

Roerich-and ballets

even

had

to be added at

the end of

opera

performances

to

ensure

a sellout.

From then

on it

was

the ballet to which

Diaghilev

devoted

most

of

his

energies;

he

soon established his

company

on a

permanent

basis

and

began

to create

a

repertory

of

new ballets

calculated

to

appeal

to the

sophisticated public

of

Paris and

other

European

cities.

Nijinsky

threw in his

lot with

Diaghilev

and

severed

his

connection with

the

Imperial

Theaters

(though

other

members

of the

company,

until

the

Revolution,

returned

to

Russia

from time to time to fulfill their

obligations

there).

Diaghilev's genius

was in the choice of collaborators:

Benois

had

given

him

the idea

that

a ballet should

be

an

integrated

spectacle

in which

choreography, music,

and

design

were

all

of

equal importance,

the

prime

example

being

the

Fokine-Stra-

vinsky-Benois

Petrouchka.

In

the

first

period

of the

Ballets

Russes the

emphasis

was

mainly

on

exoticism

of

time

and

place-the

Orient,

ancient

Greece,

pagan Russia,

with

occa-

sional excursions

into the

baroque (Le

Pavilion

d'Armide)

and

19th-century

Romanticism

(Les Sylphides,

Le

Carnaval,

Le

Spectre

de

la

Rose).

The decorative

aspect

continued

to be dominated

by

Bakst

and

Benois.

Although

their work had

a

profound

effect

on the

theater

and

decorative

arts

in

western

Europe,

it

essentially

represented

a continuation

of the

ideas

of Mir

Iskustva.

The

first step toward a greater modernism came with the advent of

Gontcharova and

Larionov,

whose

designs

derived from

Russian folk

and

primitive art,

which

in

their

eyes

was related

to

Cubism

and Fauvism.

In

music

there

were two

important

developments-one

the

use

of

symphonic

works

such

as

Rimsky-Korsakov's

Scheherazade

for

ballet,

the

other

the

commissioning

of

scores

from

contemporary composers

of the caliber

of

Stravinsky,

Debussy, Ravel,

and Richard

Strauss.

Choreographically,

the

first

ballets embodied the reforms

proposed

by

Fokine

(naturalism,

truth to

epoch

and

locale,

integration

of dance

and

mime,

elimination

of

separate numbers),

but more

radical

WINTER,

1974/75

135

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3/7

innovations

were introduced

in

Nijinsky's

own

ballets,

however

short-lived-the

inversion

of classic

technique

in

Le

Sacre du

printemps,

the

contemporary

subject

matter of

eux,

and the

totally

new relation

of dance to music

in

L'Apres-midi

d'un

faune,

where

the

steps

for the

first

time were

not tied

to

the

meter

of the music.

By

the

time

of the

outbreak of

the

first

World

War,

the

influence

of

the Ballets

Russes

was

fully

established

and

indeed

assimilated,

and if

Diaghilev

were to

maintain

his

position as arbiter of the most advanced and cultivated taste, it

would be

necessary

for him to move

ahead

and leave

behind

the exoticism

of

the

first

period.

The

second,

postwar, period

of the Ballets

Russes

actually began

in

1917

with

the

collaboration

of

Massine,

Satie,

Picasso,

and

Cocteau

in

Parade,

which

a little

belatedly

brought

Cubism

to

the

stage,

and

not

only

in Picasso's

designs-Massine

devised

a

choreogra-

phic equivalent

of certain

elements

of Cubism

in the

passages

of naturalistic

but

nonnarrative

pantomime;

the finale

was

a

collage

of

everybody

in

the

cast

repeating

their

movements

at

once. On a

similar

principle,

Satie's

score

incorporated

sirens,

typewriters,

pistol shots,

etc.

Diaghilev

was

getting

more and

more interested

in

avant-garde

painting:

he had

already

commissioned

the Futurist

Giacomo

Balla

to

design

a

mixed-media theater event (lights, moving scenery, but no

dancing)

to

accompany

Stravinsky's Fireworks,

and

Fortunato

Depero

made

designs

for the

ballet version

of the

composer's

Le

Rossignol.

In the

event,

these

were not

used,

and

the ballet

was

designed

by

Matisse.

Throughout

the

second

decade

of the

Ballets

Russes,

Diaghilev

commissioned

his

decors

from easel

painters

who

might

not otherwise

have

been drawn

toward

the

theater:

the

Delaunays, Derain, Gris,

Laurencin, Braque,

Utrillo, Mir6,

Ernst,

Bauchant,

de

Chirico,

Rouault.

In

many

of these cases

the realization

of the

vaguest

of sketches

was

entrusted

to

the

scenic

artists

Vladimir

Polunin

and

Prince Schervachidze

(the

prodigious

Picasso

very

often

painted

his

own

sets),

and

costume-makers

like Vera

(Sudeikina)

Stravinsky,

the

com-

poser's

widow

(for

instance,

the costume

worn

by

Nemchinova

in Les

Biches,

executed

by

Mme

Stravinsky,

bears

little

relation to Laurencin's

sketch

with its

suggestion

of

a

quite

unmanageable

train).

Usually

the

scenery

was

constructed

of

painted

flats

and cloths

in the

traditional

way,

however

avant-garde

the actual

design,

but in

some

ballets

experiment

was

carried

further.

La Chatte was

decorated

with construc-

tions

by

Gabo

and

Pevsner

using

materials

that were

quite

new

to the

stage-clear

plastic,

and

an oilcloth

floor

covering.

The

Soviet

artist

Georgy

Yakulov

designed

a set for

Le

Pas

d'acier

that

brought

to

the West the

kinetic,

constructivist

style

then

current

in the theater

of

Meyerhold

and

even in the

State

ballet

theaters:

the d6cor

was

made

up

of

platforms,

ladders, wheels, pulleys, signals, etc., which all jiggled, spun,

and

whirred in

the finale.

Even more

remarkable

than

these,

in

many ways,

was

the

decoration

of another

Massine

ballet, Ode,

by

Pavel

Tchelitchev.

The

hoopskirts

worn

by

some

of the

women

were

duplicated

in the dresses

of

puppets

of

diminishing

size

that

formed

the main

element of

the

scenery.

Other dancers

wore

allover

tights,

and

the decor also

included

light

projections

and

even a

movie,

made in

collaboration

with Pierre

Charbonneau.

Such

things

have

become

commonplace,

not

merely

in

experimental,

but

in commercial

theater as

well,

in recent

years,

but

it

is

worth

remembering

that these and

many

other

Henri

Matisse,

Costume

for one

of

the

mourners

in

Diaghilev's

Le

Chant

du

Rossignol.

1920.

innovations

were

first seen

in

the

productions

of

the Ballets

Russes.

It

has

been

customary

to

say

that the last

years

of the

Ballets

Russes

were a

period

of

decadence,

that after

the

commercial failure of

Diaghilev's

great

production

of the

four-act

Petipa-Tchaikovsky

classic

The

Sleeping

Beauty

in

London

in

1921

(Bakst's

last

work for

him),

he turned

to an

ever more

desperate

pursuit

of

novelty

at all

costs, particularly

in

terms

of

decor,

to

the detriment

of

choreography

and

music.

From

today's

perspective,

we

might

rather

say

that

Diaghilev

wished

to

make

the

ballet

an

expression

of

the

contemporary

spirit

in

life

and

art.

Conservative

critics

might

be

horrified

at

ballets

like

Le

Train

bleu,

but

young

people

were excited

to see

ballets

that

bore

a

recognizable

relation

to

their

own

times.

Nor

were all

the

ballets

of this

period

of

ephemeral

interest

only.

Some

of

the

music

Diaghilev

commissioned

may

have

been trivial,

but scores

like

Poulenc's

Les Biches

and

Berners'

The

Triumph

of

Neptune

are

at

least first-rate

ballet

music,

and

it

was

Diaghilev's

suggestion

to

Stravinsky

that

he

base

his

score

for Pulcinella

on

the music

of

Pergolesi

that

led to

the

transformation

of the

composer's

aesthetic,

without

which

the

history

of

contemporary

ballet,

or at least

that

part played

in

it

by

George

Balanchine

and

his

company,

would be

very

different.

As

for

choreography,

one

need

only

mention

here

that

two

of

the

most

influential

and

revolutionary

dance

works

of

the

20th

century

were

presented

by

Diaghilev

in,

respectively,

1923

and

1928:

Nijinska's

Les

Noces

and

Balanchine's

Apollo.

ART

JOURNAL,

XXXI

V/2

136



4/7

Pavel

Tchelitchev,

Decor for

Diaghilev's

Ode,

1928.

Giorgio de Chirico, Costume for a male guest, Diaghilev's

Le

Bal, 1929.

Toward the

end, Diaghilev's

nterest in the

ballet

waned

as

his health

began

to

fail;

he

turned

again

to

music

and

his

collection

of

rare

books and

no

longer

exercised

total

artistic

control over

his

company's

productions,

many

of

which

were

conceived

by

his

secretary

Boris

Kochno.

After

Diaghilev's

death the

tradition

of

artistic

collaboration

was

continued

by

the

members

of his

company

who

went to

work

elsewhere:

Kochno

continued

to

devise

libretti,

some

of

them

for

Balanchine's new

works

for

Les

Ballets 1933

and

the

reconstituted

Ballets

Russes,

which

also

presented

new

ballets

by

Fokine,

Massine,

and

Nijinska,

as well

as

much

of

the

old

Diaghilev

repertory.

When

Balanchine

came to

the

United

States

in

1934

he

brought

with

him

decors

by

Christian

Berard,Derain,

and

Tchelitchev

from

Les

Ballets

1933,

and at

first the

new

ballets

he

made

in

this

country

were

often

decorated

by

the

last-namedor

by

American

painters

chosen

by

Lincoln

Kirstein.

As

we

know,

this

practice,

still

the

rule in

the

days

of

Ballet

Society

(1946-48),

has

largely

been

abandonedsince the formationof the New

York

City

Ballet,

partly

through

economic

necessity, partly

as

a

matter

of

artistic

policy.

In

any

case, stage

design

in

this

country,

not

only

for

the

commercial

heater but

for

most

ballet

and

opera

companies,

like

other

aspects

of

artistic

endeavor,

s

subject

to

union

regulations-few

companies

will

dare

to

defy

United

Scenic

Artists

and

commission a

decor

from a

painter

who

has

not

passed

the

union

examination.

Thus,

while

no one

would

wish

Agon,

say,

to

look

otherwise

than

it

does,

one

must

deplore

the state

of

affairs

that

makes

marvelous

ballets like

Liebeslieder

Walzer

or Who

Cares? look

as

dismal

and

dowdy

as

any

contemporary

Soviet

ballet.

But

Diaghilev

had

been

interested n

recruiting

new

painters

not

only

to

decorate

his

productions-he would let them

change

the

natureof

the

stage

space

itself,

or

even

the

human

figure,

if

they

wanted

to,

and he

was

always

ready

to

let

his

artists

make

theatrical

use

of

what

they

were

doing

in

their

work as

a

whole.

As we

have

seen,

a

remarkable

number

of

contemporaryexperiments

in

stage

design

were

foreshadowed

in

Diaghilev's

productions,

and we

can

only

guess

at

what

further

experiments

he

might promote

if

he

were

still

with us.

Which

brings

us

to the

other

half

of

the

present

exhibition.

Merce

Cunningham's

major

works

over

the

last

20

years

have

been

a

series of

distinguished

collaborations:

as

in

the

Diaghilev

ballets,

the

choreography,

music,

and

decor

have

WINTER, 1974/75

137



5/7

been of

equal importance,

with the

significant

difference that

instead

of

the

integrated

spectacle

of

Diaghilev's

time,

a

Cunningham

work

is

what

one

might

call a

disintegrated

spectacle,

in which the

elements

are

independent

of

each

other-and often are

brought together only

in

the

very

last

stage

of the creation.

From the time

of

his

earliest solos

Cunningham

has

had

the

musical

collaboration of

John

Cage,

and

their

way

of

joining

music and dance has

always

been unconventional.

While

in

the

ballet the

practice

has

always

been to

choreograph

dances

to

music that

exists,

whether or not

specifically composed

for

that

ballet,

a common

procedure

in the modern dance

has

been

for

music

to be

composed

after the

choreography

is

made,

but

with

strict

adherence to its metrical structure

(the

counts,

in dancers'

parlance).

Either

method,

in the

opinion

of

Cage

and

Cunningham,

meant

the

subservience

of one or

the other

of the

elements,

and

they

proposed

instead

a

dance

whose

relation

to the

music

would be

simply

that

they

both

happened

at the

same

time-the

music

would define the

dance's duration

but

not

its

rhythmic

structure

or even

its

mood.

The

logical

conclusion

of

this idea

has

been that

neither the

music

nor

in recent

years

the

dance

has

had to

be

the

same at

every repetition

of

a

piece.

For most of his early solos Cunningham designed his own

costumes,

and

many

early group

works

were

designed

by

Remy

Charlip,

who

danced in

Cunningham's

original

com-

pany.

Cunningham

has said:

I

had

always

been

interested

in

working

with artists:

Isamu

Noguchi

with

the

ballet The

Seasons for

the Ballet

Society;

David Hare with a

handsome

but

unfunctional

costume

for

a

solo,

unfunctional in the

sense

that it

was

too

heavy

to

wear to do

anything;

Howard

Bay

with mediocre

costumes and

set

for the

Brandeis

production

of

Les

Noces. These

were not

collaborations so

much

as

designs

after the

fact

of

the dance.

(Noguchi

had

already

designed

for

Martha Graham and

was

to

design

Orpheus

for

Balanchine,

also for Ballet

Society,

in

1948,

the

year

after

The

Seasons,

which

was

Cunningham's

first

major

work.)

The

earliest

costume in

the

present

exhibition

was

made

for

Cunningham

to wear in

Dromenon,

in

1947,

and was

worn

by

him

again

in the Solo of

1973.

The

late

Sonja

Sekula

painted

the

design directly

onto

the

tights

and leotard

while

Cunningham

was

wearing them,

and a

little

of the

design

usually

comes

off onto

his

body every

time the

costume

is

worn.

Cunningham

choreographed

The

Monkey

Dances

for a

production

of

Satie's

play

Le

Piege

de

Meduse

at

Black

Mountain

College

in

1948,

a

production

that

Diaghilev

himself

might

not have

disdained

to

present-the

text was

translated

by

M. C.

Richards,

Willem and

Elaine

de

Kooning

did the

set,

Cunningham's

tail

was made

by

Richard

Lippold,

and the cast

included Elaine de

Kooning

and

Buckminster

Fuller.

The

Cunningham

Dance

Company

formally

came into

being

in

1953,

also

at

Black

Mountain,

and it

was

there

that

Robert

Rauschenberg

became

associated with

it, having

taken

part

in

the

John Cage

Theater Piece

in the

summer

of

1952.

In

1954

Rauschenberg

designed

a

set

for a

Cunningham dance,

Minutiae. This set, actually executed in collaboration with

Jasper

Johns,

is related

to

the

small

collage

also

on

exhibition.

It

is three-dimensional and

was used as

a

freestanding

unit in

center

stage around, through,

and under which the dancers

moved

during

the

course

of the

piece.

Two

years

later,

for

the

Satie

Nocturnes, Rauschenberg

made a

set

and

costumes

that

represented

his

idea of

night-not

darkness

but

the

bright

moonlight

of a

nuit blanche.

In

Nocturnes,

in

fact,

as

opposed

to much

of

Cunningham's

work,

the relation of

dance to

music

Robert

Rauschenberg,

Set from

Cunningham's

Minutiae,

1954.

ART

JOURNAL,

XXXI

V/2

38



6/7

was

a

fairly

traditional

one,

and the decor

and costumes

were

further extensions

of

the

same

imagery presented

in the

music

and the

choreography.

Cunningham

had

already

been

experimenting

with chance

methods of

composition,

in which he

sought

to free

himself

from

the

limitations

of

his own

imagination

and

of

a dancer's

habitual

way

of

moving

from one

position

to

another,

by using

such

methods

as

tossing

a

coin to

determine

the

choice,

sequence,

tempo,

and

frequency

of

the

movements

in a dance.

Even

Nocturnes

was

choreographed

in

this

way.

Some

consultation

with the

designer frequently

took

place,

for

obvious reasons-for

an

example,

see

Cunningham's

letter

to

Rauschenberg

on

his ideas for Antic

Meet,

reprinted

in

Changes, Cunningham's

notes

on

choreography (edited

by

Frances

Starr

for the

Something

Else

Press, 1968).

All

the

same,

Rauschenberg

was

given

and

exercised total

freedom

to

decorate

and

clothe

the

piece:

the

dancers

wore

basic

black

tights

and

leotards,

to

which

were

added

35

ready-made

garments

and

objects-overalls,

burlap

sacks,

a

nightgown,

parachutes, hooped

underskirts. In the

same

year,

1958,

Rauschenberg

painted

the

famous

pointillist

backcloth and

costumes

for

Summerspace,

for which

Cunningham

had the

idea,

which

he

described

in the

same letter as

looking

at

part

of an enormous landscape and you can only see the action in

this

particular

portion

of

it.

Rauschenberg

carried the idea

further

in

his

decor-when

the

dancers were

at rest

they

became

almost

invisible,

camouflaged

like insects or animals

whose

protective

coloring

conceals them in their environment.

Again

in

Aeon

(1961),

there

was the idea

of

using

basic

leo-

tards

and

tights,

bluish

in

color,

to which different

elements

could be

added:

long

sleeves for the

women,

trousers made

of

feathers

for the

men.

Rauschenberg

also devised certain events

such

as small

explosions

that

occurred at the front

of the

stage

as

the

curtain

rose,

and

a

machine

suspended

from

the flies

that

passed

across

above

the

dancers as

they lay prone

at the

end of

a section. With all

these

pieces

there

is

a

difficulty

as far

as an

exhibition

is

concerned:

habitually,

Rauschenberg

did

not design his d6cors and costumes, he made them-there is no

sketch,

there

is

just

a

costume or

a

set. This

practice

was

carried

to its

logical

conclusion

in

Story

(1963),

performed

all

over

the

world in

the

tour of

1964,

but never in New York:

for

this ballet

Rauschenberg

constructed a

set out

of whatever

materials were

at hand in each

theater

the

company

visited

(at

one

series of

four

consecutive

performances

in

London,

Rauschenberg's

contribution

consisted

of

making

a

painting

on

stage,

which

grew night

after

night);

for the

costumes

the

dancers

again

wore

basic

leotards

and

tights,

in

yellow

this

time,

to

which

they

could add

various

garments

out of a

large

duffel

bag

whose contents

were

dumped

in the

wings.

This

dance and

Field

Dances

of

the same

year

introduced a

greater

element

of

indeterminancy

into the

performance

itself,

the

dancers

being given

freedom of

choice

among

various

possibilities

in the

choreography.

Cunningham

has described

this kind of

activity

as

a kind of

anarchy

where

people

may

work

freely together.

The

end

of

the world

tour

also marked the

close

of the

period

of

collaboration

with

Rauschenberg, during

most of

which the

painter

had

functioned

also as

stage manager

and

lighting

designer.

In

the

last

few

years, Jasper Johns

has been

the

artistic advisor

to

the

company, designing

some

pieces

himself and

for

others

choosing

an artist

who

has

been free

to

decorate or

define the

space

in whatever

way

he

likes: for

Andy

Warhol,

Set for

Cunningham's

Rainforest,

1968.

Scramble

(1967)

Frank

Stella made

strips

of

canvas in

primary

colors,

stretched on

movable

frames;

Rainforest

(1968)

was

decorated

with

Andy

Warhol's

floating

silver

pillows;

Johns

made

a

decor

based

on

Marcel

Duchamp's

The

Large

Glass for

Walkaround Time

(1968),

and for

Second

Hand

(1970)

dressed the

dancers in

costumes that made

a

spectrum

when

they

lined

up

across

the

stage

in the

final

bows;

Robert

Morris'

vertical

beam for

Canfield, crossing

and

recrossing

the

stage

and

throwing

light

onto the

backcloth,

and

Bruce

Nauman's

row

of

standing

industrial fans for

Tread

(1970)

both

placed

the

decor

between

dancers

and

audience;

for TV

Rerun

(1972)

Johns'

decor

consisted

of

a

group

of

photographers

who

moved around

the

perimeter

of

the

performing

area

shooting

the action with still or

movie

cameras.

For the ballet

of the Paris

Opera

last

year

Cunningham

choreographed

a

work of

epic

proportions,

with

music

by

John

Cage

and

decor

by

Johns,

assisted

by

Mark

Lancaster,

Un

Jour

ou

deux.

This

piece

used the whole

enormous

space

of the

Opera stage,

divided into

two

areas

by scrims,

one down

front,

one

halfway

back,

shading

from

very

dark to

very

light

gray;

behind the

farther

scrim,

the

shadowy

outlines of the

architecture

of the

stage's

rear wall

could

be

seen.

His own

company's

programs

are

now

almost

always

given

over

to

what

Cunningham

calls

Events-uninterrupted

per-

WINTER,

1974/75

139



7/7

Jasper

Johns,

Set

after Marcel

Duchamp's

The

Large

Glass

for

Cunningham's

Walkaround

Time,

1968.

formances

of

pieces

from

the

repertory,

whole or in

part,

put

together

in an

arrangement

for the

particular

occasion and

rarely repeated

more

than

two or

three

times. His newest

choreography, including

Changing

Steps

of

1973,

has

been

seen

only

in

this

way. Cunningham's

reasons

for

doing

this,

like most of

his

decisions,

are

essentially practical

ones:

an

Event can be

arranged

to

fit

any

kind of

performing

area,

whether

proscenium

stage

or

gymnasium

or

studio,

and

can

accommodate

itself

to

any

of the

circumstances

that

may

occur,

such as loss

of

dancers

through permanent

departure

or

temporary

disability, unsuitability

of

stage surface,

or

what-

ever-Cunningham

feels

that

in

the

face of

this

kind of

unpredictability,

it

is

better to be

flexible

than

rigid.

As

with

any

artist,

his

experiments

and

innovations are

rarely

made

for the

sake

of

doing

something

new,

but because

that is the direction in which his way of working takes him. A

choreographer

like

Cunningham

does not

deliberately

work in

an

experimental

way,

any

more

than

one like Frederick

Ashton works

in

a

consciously

traditional

way-they

do

what

they

do,

and the results

may

seem

to

some

people

surprisingly

classic

in a

Cunningham

work

(as

in the

Paris

Opera

piece)

and innovative

in

one

of

Ashton's.

Thus

in

his

Scenes de ballet

(1948)

Ashton

had

the

idea that

you

could

make

the

front

anywhere,

not

necessarily...

where the

public

sit

and

see.

Cunningham

has

worked on a

similar

principle

at

least since

Suite

by

Chance

(1953)- The

dancer

is

at a

given point

in the

dancing

area. That

point

in

space

... is center

for

him... .

We

are accustomed

by

now to the

fact that such ideas are

in

the

air

and can occur

to

different

artists

who

may

not be

aware

of each

other's work.

By

the

same

token,

we

can trace

Cunningham's lineage

back to

various

works

of

the

Diaghilev

period (contrary

to what

many people

have

said, Cunningham

was

not influenced

by

Martha Graham in

his

choreography

or

even in

his

technique,

except

in

a

negative

sense)-Nijinsky's

use,

or

nonuse,

of

the

music

in Faune

(and

also the

shapes

made in

space

between the

dancers);

the

collage

elements of

Parade and

the

Dadaism

of

another

Satie

ballet,

Reldche,

presented

by

the

Ballets

Suedois

in

1924;

the

abstract

designs

made

by

the

dancers

in

gray

tights

in

Massine's

Ode;

the

dislocations

of the

stage

area of

Les

Noces;

the

sculptural

groupings

of

Apollo.

I am not

suggesting

that

Cunningham

is

influenced

by

these

ballets,

most

of which he

cannot have

seen, merely that their discoveries, once made, become part of

what is available

to

any

choreographer,

just

as

Cunningham

in

his

turn has come across new

ways

of

moving

and

new

ways

of

putting

movements

together,

and

thus made

them

available to

those

who

come after him.

U

David

Vaughn

has written

on dance for

many

American and

foreign

periodicals.

He has been

an

associate

of Merce

Cunningham's

for

15

years.

This

piece

originally

appeared

in

the

catalogue

for

the

exhibition

at Hofstra

University's Emily

Lowe

Gallery.

ART

JOURNAL,

XXXIV/2

40


Diaghilev - Cunningham 1974

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