Chance and Circumstance

Chance and Circumstance PDF

Author: Carolyn Brown

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2009-12-23

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 0307575608

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The long-awaited memoir from one of the most celebrated modern dancers of the past fifty years: the story of her own remarkable career, of the formative years of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and of the two brilliant, iconoclastic, and forward-thinking artists at its center—Merce Cunningham and John Cage. From its inception in the l950s until her departure in the l970s, Carolyn Brown was a major dancer in the Cunningham company and part of the vibrant artistic community of downtown New York City out of which it grew. She writes about embarking on her career with Cunningham at a time when he was a celebrated performer but a virtually unknown choreographer. She describes the heady exhilaration—and dire financial straits—of the company’s early days, when composer Cage was musical director and Robert Rauschenberg designed lighting, sets and costumes; and of the struggle for acceptance of their controversial, avant-garde dance. With unique insight, she explores Cunningham’s technique, choreography, and experimentation with compositional procedures influenced by Cage. And she probes the personalities of these two men: the reticent, moody, often secretive Cunningham, and the effusive, fun-loving, enthusiastic Cage. Chance and Circumstance is an intimate chronicle of a crucial era in modern dance, and a revelation of the intersection of the worlds of art, music, dance, and theater that is Merce Cunningham’s extraordinary hallmark.

Merce Cunningham Redux

Merce Cunningham Redux PDF

Author: James Klosty

Publisher: powerHouse Books

Published: 2019-11-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781576879429

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James Klosty'sMerce Cunninghamwas the first book ever published about Cunningham. It appeared in 1975 and was republished in 1986. Now, for the 100th anniversary of Cunningham's birth, it is reincarnated for a twenty-first-century audience in duotone printing, redesignedand completely reimagined with an additional 140pages of photographs, many published never before. In the years since their passing, the historical importance of the partnership of John Cage and Merce Cunningham has grown to the point where no consideration of avant-garde art, music, and dance in America makes sense if Cunningham and Cage are not posited, serene and smiling, at the wellspring of its inspiration. This is true not only in America but around the globe as well. Art does not exist in a vacuum and neither did Cunningham and Cage. Painters such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Robert Morris, and composers such as Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, and Pauline Oliveros joined the endeavor. Jasper Johns slyly lured Marcel Duchamp into allowing his iconic Large Glass to be used as decor for a Cunningham dance. Cunningham repeatedly invited Erik Satie (without Satie's permission) into his musical family. This seemingly haphazard association of innovative artists served as the nearest thing America could offer in counterbalance to Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. In addition to Klosty's photographs of the artists, composers, and dancers;and the dances themselves, both in rehearsal and performance; the book contains texts from Cunningham's associates including John Cage, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Carolyn Brown, Paul Taylor, Lincoln Kirstein, Edwin Denby, and a dozen others.

Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham PDF

Author: Carrie Noland

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 022654124X

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One of the most influential choreographers of the twentieth century, Merce Cunningham is known for introducing chance to dance. Far too often, however, accounts of Cunningham’s work have neglected its full scope, focusing on his collaborations with the visionary composer John Cage or insisting that randomness was the singular goal of his choreography. In this book, the first dedicated to the complete arc of Cunningham’s career, Carrie Noland brings new insight to this transformative artist’s philosophy and work, providing a fresh perspective on his artistic process while exploring aspects of his choreographic practice never studied before. Examining a rich and previously unseen archive that includes photographs, film footage, and unpublished writing by Cunningham, Noland counters prior understandings of Cunningham’s influential embrace of the unintended, demonstrating that Cunningham in fact set limits on the role chance played in his dances. Drawing on Cunningham’s written and performed work, Noland reveals that Cunningham introduced variables before the chance procedure was applied and later shaped and modified the chance results. Chapters explore his relation not only to Cage, but also Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, James Joyce, and Bill T. Jones. Ultimately, Noland shows that Cunningham approached movement as more than “movement in itself,” and that his work enacted archetypal human dramas. This remarkable book will forever change our appreciation of the choreographer’s work and legacy.

Walker's Way

Walker's Way PDF

Author: Isabelle Storey

Publisher:

Published: 2007-10

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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Isabelle Storey's memoir of her 10-year marriage to Walker Evans. The story of an elegant young woman's infatuation with a great American artist - with the man himself, with what he stood for aesthetically and with his artistic and social circle and how her initial passion gradually cooled into disenchantment. In candid, poignant narrative, which draws on the couple's correspondence, Isabelle describes how their marriage grew more formal, cooler and eventually failed altogether as Isabelle felt compelled to move on.

Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham PDF

Author: Roger Copeland

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780415965750

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First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Curating Live Arts

Curating Live Arts PDF

Author: Dena Davida

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2018-11-29

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1785339648

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Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.

Other Animals

Other Animals PDF

Author: Merce Cunningham

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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Known worldwide for his remarkable, groundbreaking choreography, Merce Cunningham has a secret: he also draws. For the first time he opens a door into his fantastical animal kingdom with Aperture's publication of Other Animals. Cunningham, an obsessive observer with a colossal sense of humor, revels in nature with the same childlike vision and expressiveness that infuses his dances. Like his dances, his drawings are impressions, inventions, gestures, and interactions. Cunningham introduces us to a bird riding a turtle, a bizarre hybrid creature wearing a fashionable sweater, and an ostrich that rivals the gracefulness of his dancers. The drawings are collected in a beautifully produced, colorful volume, with selected entries from Cunningham's journals and photographs of some of his dances and their notations. These drawings offer a key to understanding how Cunningham renders his vision of the world through dance--and how his vision is translated into costuming through his collaboration with designers such as Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçonnes.

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