Posted on June 26, 2024 by Katherine Bishop
This month as some of our BA students explore Merce Cunningham’s repertoire for their Dance Repertory Project and to celebrate Pride Month we are highlighting a unique relationship between two artistic innovators.
Experimental music pioneer and philosopher John Cage (1912-1992) pushed the boundaries of composition far beyond previous limits.
Dancer and postmodernist choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) was described by dance critic David Vaughan (Obituary, Guardian, 27 July 2009) as ‘one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century, and the greatest American-born one.’
Cunningham and Cage – A Creative Collaboration
· Cunningham first met Cage in 1938 when Bonnie Bird, the dance instructor at Seattle’s Cornish School, engaged him as the accompanist for her dance classes. A year later Cunningham left to join Martha Graham’s company in New York, where he remained until 1945, taking leading roles as a soloist in El Penitente (1945), Letter to the World (1940), and Appalachian Spring (1944).
· Cage made his way to New York in 1942. He wrote the score for Credo in Us, jointly choreographed by Cunningham and Jean Erdman, and Totem Ancestor, which was a solo in Merce’s first independent dance recital. Thus began a personal and professional collaboration that was to last until Cage’s death in August 1992.
· In Cunningham and Cage at the Laban Centre Stephanie Jordan writes:
‘John Cage, whose indefatigable sense of humour permeated the entire course, presented a lecture entitled ‘Music for Dance’. He described how he’d escaped from the ‘boom boom’ school (where the dancer always landed from a jump as the music ‘came down’) and how, throughout his career with Cunningham, he’d espoused the theory of independence and equality for music and dance. Cage conceived the idea some time ago when observing swimmers in a pool through the window of a cafe where a jukebox was playing. He noticed that the music, which the swimmers couldn’t hear, quite happily accompanied their movements in the pool.’
(Dancing Times, October 1980, pp. 38-39)
Cunningham and Cage – Dancing to the Sound of Silence
‘It was on August 29, 1952, in Woodstock, New York, that Cage debuted 4’33” – his most infamous, and celebrated, piece. It amounted to having a concert pianist (David Tudor) enter the performance hall, sit at a piano (with a stopwatch at hand), and remain motionless for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. As the clock ticked the audience shuffled their shoes, coughed, rustled their clothes, creaked their theater seats, and — no doubt, impatiently — waited for the music to begin. But with the performance reaching its inevitable conclusion, Tudor rose, bowed, and left the stage.
The crowd was understandably stunned. In hindsight some would come to understand that Cage’s intent was to present the idea that unprogrammed sounds were every bit as valid as traditionally arranged sounds. In the process he destroyed the commonly understood definition of what music could be. The uproar that followed actually cost Cage some musician friends and even his own mother reportedly questioned whether her son had finally gone too far.’
(Extract from Blecha, P. (2010). Cage, John (1912-1992). HistoryLink.org, Essay 9423)
· Cunningham’s 1994 choreographed solo dance for Cage’s seminal composition is entitled 4’33″ and Other Sounds Not Intended/A Tribute to John Cage. It was recreated as part of Night of Solos: A Centennial Event in London in 2017.
· You can find more information about this work on the Merce Cunningham Trust website with this link: 4′ 33”. The Night of 100 Solos performance of this piece starts at 1hr 14 mins.
Cunningham and Cage – At the Laban Centre
· Cunningham and Cage’s Laban Residency took place in July 1980 at the Laban Centre in Laurie Grove, south-east London, and featured lectures, panel discussion and performances during its weeklong duration.
© Peter Sayers.
Cunningham & Cage at a drinks reception, 14 July 1980; Cunningham demonstrating a movement in composition class, 17 July 1980.
· 13 digitized recordings relating to Cunningham and Cage’s Laban Residency are available in the Library on eStream. These include an audio recording of John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s performance of A Dialogue, as well as John Cage’s lecture on Music For Dance, and video recordings of the end of the residency performances. There is also an audio recording of a panel discussion on the subject of ‘Collaboration or Coexistence: two approaches to inter-disciplinary work in the arts‘ which includes the following participants: Alistair McCauley (dance critic and writer); Keith Potter (composer, critic and musicologist); Louise Burns (Cunningham dancer); Chris Komar (Cunningham dancer); John Cage; Merce Cunningham; David Vaughan (dance critic and archivist); Peter Logan (artist); Bonnie Bird (ex-dancer and dance teacher); Val Bourne (from the Greater London Arts Association); Chairman John Thompson (visual artist, Dean, School of Art and Design, Goldsmiths’ College).
· Images from the Residency are publicly available on the external portal of Trinity Laban eStream which can be accessed at http://video.trinitylaban.ac.uk (clicking on Login as guest -> Archive -> Cage & Cunningham Residency -> Search).
Cunningham and Cage – In the Archive
· The Cunningham and Cage Residency is also represented in our Archive. Most of the relevant items are in the Laban Centre Collection itself, with some in the Marion North, Bonnie Bird, Peter Williams and Lorna Wilson Collections. These varied materials include photographs; correspondence; magazine articles; administrative papers; a recording of Cage’s Residency lecture; biographical materials and images of classes and rehearsals.
· For further details on the Archive within the Laban Library or to arrange a visit, please contact: Labanlibrary@trinitylaban.ac.uk
Cunningham and Cage – In Exhibitions
See the select bibliography below for some of the major exhibition catalogues held by the Library about the Cunningham / Cage collaboration.
Cunningham and Cage – A Personal Partnership
· Cage dealt adroitly with questions about his personal relationship with Cunningham at a time when LGBTQ+ rights were barely in their infancy. When a young man who no doubt hoped to ‘out’ them once asked in a public forum about their domestic life, Cage said, after a pause, ‘Well, I do the cooking … and Merce does the dishes.’
· As for their cooking, in an article from the Laban Archive entitled At the Table: Dietgame Moira Hodgson writes:
‘John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s cooking is as unconventional as their music and choreography … Cage, forever the thrifty cook, likes to make bread from leftovers he excavates from the recesses of his refrigerator – broccoli, carrots, and so on – which he then purees into a vegetable gruel and mixes with stone-ground whole wheat flour.’
‘Cage once gave a concert in which he operated a Waring blender onstage. Then he amplified his esophagus and drank the vegetable juice he had just made.’
(Extracts from House & Garden Magazine, n.d., p. 88 D11/2003/11/15/61)
All in all a truly ground-breaking and inspirational pair of artists.
Select Bibliography
Basualdo, C. & Battle, E.F. (Eds.) (2012). Dancing around the bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Caplan, E. (1986). The Collaborators. Merce Cunningham Trust. https://tinyurl.com/bdcth9p3
Caplan, E. (n.d.) Cage/Cunningham. Merce Cunningham Trust. https://tinyurl.com/3mnjm99p
Copeland, R. (2004). Merce Cunningham: The modernizing of modern dance. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cunningham, M. (1985). The dancer and the dance / Merce Cunningham in conversation with Jacqueline Lesschaeve. Marion Boyars.
Francis, R. (1989). Dancers on a plane: Cage. Cunningham. Johns: Susan Sontag in memory of their feelings. Anthony d’Offay Gallery.
Meade, F. & Rothfuss, J. (Eds.). (2017). Merce Cunningham – Co:mm:on Ti:me. Walker Art Center Minneapolis.
Noland, C. (2019). Merce Cunningham: After the arbitrary. University of Chicago Press.
Roth, M. & Katz, J. (1998). Difference/indifference: Musings on postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. GB Arts International.
Tate Gallery Liverpool (1989). Dancers on a plane: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns. Tate Gallery Liverpool.
Tate Gallery London (2017). The Black Mountain College, John Cage & Merce Cunningham http://www.tate.org.uk
Laban Library and Archive 