Merce Cunningham Dance Company at BAM: Second Hand
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- čas přidán 27. 12. 2011
- Merce Cunningham: The Legacy Tour
2011 Next Wave Festival
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
The Legacy Tour
Second Hand, 1970
Choreography by Merce Cunningham
Music by John Cage
Costumes by Jasper Johns - Zábava
It's amazing how people completely forget the whole concept of these amazing pieces.
What is the whole concept of this dance?
@@billandpech Referring to the random elements deliberately put into each creation.
@@Mmmmmmmbacon Can you expand upon this?
@@fhdream Cunningham was intrigued by randomness and one of his key methodologies was the concept of chance. He would flip coins, roll dice, use playing cards, and other things to determine dancers' movements or even the number of dancers in a work. So his randomness was deliberate but the movements were not planned. He also believed that music and dance can exist independently of each other while still being in a performance together. The composer and Cunningham would create their work separately; Cunningham and his dancers wouldn't rehearse to the music, and the end result was always just as surprising to the dancers as the audience.
Second Hand was also based on Satie's Socrate. Cage wrote a piano arrangement of Satie's score using chance procedure techniques and sent Cunningham a kind of sketch of this new composition he called "Cheap Imitation". The only thing Cunningham had of Cage's music were durational cues and so he began to create this choreography using both "Cheap Imitation" and Satie's libretto of Socrate. Check out "The Gay Divorce of music and Dance" by Daniel Callahan for the full story.
nobody:
the audience: *cough cough*
It's so beautiful.
No one here seems to know the idea behind these dances... The music is supposed to be all over the place... the dancers or the choreographer Merce had never heard the music before the dance, and John Cage the composer had never seen the dance before composing the music. That is why this is so random and chaotic..... and awesome to me. Anyone who hates this would wet their pants and run crying to their momma if they explored the world of free jazz. peace
@@nivozen lol, well I hope your mama has a rag for you when you run to her
so awesome.
This is awesome for my ballet intensive vp cuz I need to create a 2 min choreography based on Merce Cunningham YAY
The best-trained company in the world. Andrea Weber, with Robert Swinston (at the beginning), is a knockout--gorgeous lines, perfect articulation at all times. So expressive. While it makes me sad to know that I'll never see them dance again, it's difficult to imagine work like this continuing without Merce being there to guide it.
I've seen a fair number of licensed performances since MC's death. It's always great to see but very few non-Cunningham dancers are able to project the beautiful lines or move through time and space with such elegance as his own dancers. And they never have the strength to hold those poses without wobbling. It's hard to project his stillness when you look like you're about to fall over. That said, it's still worth seeing these performances. Lyon Ballet just did a very respectable "Summerspace." And every once in a while an individual dancer will stand out as "getting it."
Is one of my great male dancers
Coreografia maravilhosa
I honestly find this very interesting. Cunningham is so different from the technique that I'm used to (Graham/Horton based) and the isolated movements is just wonderful. Some people might find it boring because of the 'randomness' and lack of tricks but I think that's what makes it interesting to watch. The movements seem to have no pattern whatsoever and everyone is doing something different making the entire piece somewhat spontaneous. This is an example of what true modern is, not the ones that have too many 'tricks' people see on TV. I was recently given a solo and watching this have made me realized that it was choreographed based on Cunningham technique, and takes a lot from your body. （＾ν＾）
Siempre hay gente tosiendo,,,, forros! Jajaja
2020?
I dance both techniques, and i love the Simplicity of the Cunningham Technique, because it gives each person in the Audience to create their own story.
As a dance professional for many years a choreographer dates to answer the question if his or her movements are to be assessable to the audience?? Alvin Ailey is determined to make his dances relatable to the audience and show the Beauty of black people. To be as modern as Merce you need to understand that he is completely absorbed that aesthetic. It is a lot wrong or right if you like it or if you were bored with it.
I am replying to myself. The audio on my phone apparently horrible at making comments. I hope the reader can understand. Alvin Ailey wants his work to be assessable and for Merce Cunningham this is not so important.
What kind of dance is this?
BOooooooorrinnnngggggg
前面音效有給他震撼到 顆顆
One body. Music and many dancers become one body each part a part of it all. so, so sweet and gently disciplined and harmoniously achieved. so, so difficult to achieve. narrative is a blind blind force of separation. so I teach my students, managing to inspire them. as Gertrude Stein wrote: everybody hates it and everybody hates it and than everybody loves it. I love it with it’s openness and it’s oh so delicate it’s oh so patient fires of joy. cage and merce.
The blue lighting on the stage reminds me of peeing my pants in first grade and feeling cold and ashamed. That exact blue! So weird how colors affect us.
why did you feel the need to share that here?
@@randallmartin: Probably, still doing it.
Does anyone knows the name of this cage music?
"Cheap Imitation"
EMJ sent me here
I’m personally not a fan and got bored, then again I am a dancer who loves either classic ballet or acro dances with trick after trick (I know I’ve heard lots of people say they hate those dances) 😅 I mean I could just watch someone tumbling for a while and I’m entertained, I do love acro tricks
I love watching seals balance things on their noses.
Análise
boring for one, relatable to another
i clicked on it bc rainbow
Imagine taking mushrooms before seeing this
Its not boring, but the music is all over the place, and without proper music, it is hard to inspire the mind to understand the story being told.
+Abigail Ogren What is proper music in your opinion? The music in this video is by John Cage, one of the most influential composers of the 20th C.
Its has no point or journey. It doesn't go anywhere. I mean, maybe I simply can't enjoy it because I've been born in the 21st century, but the music seems to random. And each person is doing their own thing that its just hard to focus and enjoy this performance.
There is no story. There is no journey. It's just movement, stasis, shape, space, line, time. Looking for anything concrete in MC's art is like trying to find a kitty cat in a Jackson Pollack painting.
Jim P You're the best commentarist :)
For me this is just like baseball, boring (for me) to watch, fun and rewarding to do.
I'd rather be on the stage than watch, oddly enough.
If the original composition was unrehearsed, and the dance was improvised on first hearing, why not improvise the entire thing, each performance? Why halt the original improvisation impulse by scripting the dance to look random, and then rehearsing it to death? As an experiment, why not add a completely unrehearsed person to the dance?
I think the hard thing is that competition dance has tried too hard to easily be palatable that a piece that requires more work from the audience (which isn’t a bad thing) is just tossed aside.
Sometimes I feel like Cunningham tried too hard to be different and creative, using the concept of uncoordinated music as a hook upon which to hang his hat of creativity. In this number, the music just seems like a child banging on a piano in the background, if it felt like it fit in with the piece (such as in Rainforest), it wouldn't be so bad, but here it just seemed to distract and make the whole piece feel a bit ugly and awkward. The dance is pretty good though, so I suppose Cage is more to blame than anyone else.
You have to look at it as if it was a collage work. Music and dance coexist together as a whole.
I think it's a shame that this is called modern dance when the concept, or meaning, of it appears to be so consistent with postmodern philosophy. The arduously developed skills of these well trained dancers have been turned against the purposes, sciences and lineages of their art the same way postmodern philosophers attack reason, perception, meaning and values. Both seem to be rejoicing in the assertion that there is no meaning to anything, and regarding this dance, perhaps even mocking their audience for paying to watch them burn it all down.
billandpech Peterson fan boy, I'm guessing?
Agree, Cunningham is absolutely a postmodern artist. Why do you think this is viewed as modern dance?
@@breathemovetone549 My mistake for not being aware there was a post-modern dance genre.
Is this art attacking your reason, perception, meaning and values?
Boring? I guess you do not appreciate abstract dance, Cunningham technique or the artistry/expressiveness of these dancers. Too bad so sad for you.
+suzzym1 I guess you do not appreciate abstract dance
Yeah, that was boring as hell
Says a locked pig
boring
lkjhu76 SHUT UP
@@valeriemetrailler3685 kid
boring asf