Merce Cunningham: Event at Dia:Beacon

Sunday February 22, 2009

Beacon Event 2009

“Presented without intermission, this Event consists of dances from the repertory and new sequences arranged for the particular performance and place, with the possibility of several separate activities happening at the same time—to allow not so much an afternoon of dances as the experience of dance.” – Merce Cunningham


I was lucky enough to tag along with Douglas Crimp’s Dance in Film Class (Performance Studies, NYU) today to Dia:Beacon in upstate New York where we saw the most recent of Merce Cunningham’s Events at the museum. Amidst sculptures made from steel, metal, wood, sand, and glass, the dancers fleshiness was made pronounced. They should have looked the same – clad in coordinated unitards designed by Anna Finke, and carefully moving through the precise postures and sequences designed by Cunningham, they might have been machines or androids – yet what was most striking to me was the degree to which the dancers’ personalities and humanity blasted out.

We lined up, buzzing with excitement, in the gallery. Familiar gray marley-covered mini-stages were placed strategically in front of Dan Flavin’s neon lightscape installation, networked with black runways of carpeting which were monitored by some very gruff guards who forbid us from stepping on, hopping over, or even approaching the black swaths. Arty New York types in pointy silver Doc Martens, starkly framed glasses, and extraordinary scarves twittered to each other while their equally creatively-dressed offspring did their best to behave while waiting for the dancers to appear. Finally they did, filing in and taking their respective places on the separate stages, or “backstage” in full view, covering up with blankets with water, tissues, foot tape, and Styrofoam rollers at the ready. Watching them watch the other dancers from this naked backstage added a fun layer to the performance.

The dancers began to move slowly and methodically, bodies streamlined by exercise regimens and the lines of their costumes, rising with arms extended, bending in deep plié with their torsos extended all the way to one side – everything uniform and intentional. From my vantage ten feet away, it was impossible not to notice Julie Cunningham as she wobbled slightly in a parallel relevé (some of my friends and I later wondered aloud if we would have been able to see these details in a concert setting). Other dancers sustained arabesques and attitudes while they tilted and hinged from different joints. They too shook slightly, their muscles straining to maintain the prescribed positions, making the watchers acutely aware of the labor involved, and breaking the illusion that sometimes forms of mystical creatures with machinelike grace. In their shaking they became human, and furthermore, human in a relationship with the other humans watching them while set against the dramatic rock, slate and shale of the Upstate Landscape and the metal materials of the various exhibits. Within moments, small pockets of sweat began to form on the gray spandex covering them: first under the arms, then at the navel, between the legs, and then running down the spine.

Exchanging places and partners, repeating abstract movements, the dancers moved amidst conditions of interchangeability but just as Julie Cunningham’s slight shake brought us rocketing back to physical awareness, the subtle shifts in facial expression and gaze opened up expressions of individuality. It was interesting to think about what elements I might have missed had I seen the piece in a theater. Certainly I would have been able to see more of the piece had I been looking from a further vantage but close up, I was party to silent interactions between dancers that I would have missed otherwise. Emma Desjardins seemed innocent, barely aware of the things her body was doing, a serene look on her face as she shifted and morphed, while Robert Swinston, a veteran Merce dancer was resolute, hard-eyed, and intense. Daniel Madoff knew something everyone else didn’t and lorded it over us the entire time, laughing at a secret joke, turning the tables and watching us as we tried to soak him in. He looked at me (or so I thought) directly, as if to say: “Oh hey. What’s up.” The tension between precision and uniformity on one hand and the overflowing of life, personality, and mortality was delicious.

Finally, as I walked through the rest of the gallery I passed Mr. Cunningham in his wheelchair, surrounded by admirers. He wore little black moon shoes and his face looked inflated, his worn body showing many if not all of his 90 years. There was the masterful manipulator of bodies, arrested in his own form – humbling me and inspiring me both at once.