Cunningham Dances Go Far Afield
A highly anticipated centenary commemoration of dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham branched out and went far, far afield with new creations. The grabbag also boasted a whip-cracking specialist, a radio soap opera, improvisation and even a vintage Ohlone Indian singer. To boot, a live performance artist straight out of some contemporary art display spent the time on stage untangling a spaghetti of tangled wires—and doing nothing else.
Oh Merce, where are you now that we really need you?
When he died a decade ago, Merce and his company had left a great and unique legacy in dance annals, as innovative as you could ever imagine. His modern dancers danced to a different drummer; the soundscapes provided no guiding beats at all, and movement appeared totally separate, but totally precise, with nary a collision on stage (Did they all have clocks and stopwatches inside their heads?). The precision and the unemotional expressionism had a wide appeal in the age of computers and machines, enabling the thoroughly rehearsed troupe to tour around the country year after year.
The Cunningham dance excerpts in the ODC Theater program (stemming from 1967-2002) were brief but meticulously prepared. The dazzling foursome of women performed with high discipline in Silas Riener’s bright clinging costumes.
Otherwise, the highly ambitious program of premieres featured intimate inventions for up to five performers, with nine new creations altogether, and close to a score of performers in all. The net effect was like a paint-splatter Jackson Pollock painting: diffuse, but lacking impact and focus. These included composing with chance elements and rolling of dice, much as Merce and his partner John Cage did. Plus a lot of improvisation and staged happenings, subject to individual interpretation. For instance, the fiery figure of Danny Thanh Nguyen at center stage cracking whips with gunshot resonance: Could that be a furious political protest over inaction by Washington politicians?
And did we mention that old-style radio soap opera?
The modern dancers of note this night included soloist Nicole Piesl in her own creation; Nol Simonse in a Christy Funsch piece; and Claire Fisher and Frankie Lee in “(Study)one” by Dazaun Soleyn, an opus with Middle-Eastern flavor. By the time we got to Julie Moon’s “Quincunx,” I could sense Buñuel-style surrealism.
Elaborate new videos too made the scene, mostly abstract geometric figures in motion. And it all was launched by—hold your hats—a solo ice-breaker with song based on rituals by Kanyon Sayers-Roods, a member of the Ohlone tribe.
The Friday performance at the 171-seat theater was sold out.
“Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100,” a multi-media Bridge Project dance-theater collaboration with Merce excerpts plus nine works by current artists, at ODC Theater, San Francisco, Nov. 8-9. For more information: odc.dance.
