Merce Cunningham and John Cage: A Collaboration – June 2024

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

Objects in the Archive – April 2024

This month we are highlighting some of the objects contained in the Laban Library Archive. These objects are currently on display at the Laban Library and we invite you to come and take a look. This post will explore some of the objects in more detail, exploring their history, connections with the institution and how they came into our care. We have selected objects from a range of sources within our collection and the information will therefore be divided according to the people the objects relate to. Much of the information which is accompanying the items in the display was compiled by Jane Fowler who was previously the archivist at the Laban Library and Archive. We are extremely grateful for her work, insights and contributions to the collection. 

Marion North 

Extract from Trinity Laban website (unknown author): 

Dr Marion North was one of the key figures in British contemporary dance of the last century. Marion led Laban (under a number of variations on the name) for 30 years and in that time reshaped professional dance training in the UK and increased the wider understanding of the importance of dance in a variety of contexts. By the time Marion retired in 2003, she had developed Laban from an institution focusing on Rudolf Laban’s work to an international centre for dance training, investigation and research, housed in a state-of-the-art building in London. Her vision, plus her considerable skills as a leader, manager and administrator, has resulted in a lasting legacy for the whole of the dance community. 

Marion was born and grew up in Hull, and later studied at Homerton Teacher Training College, before undertaking postgraduate study at the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester in the 1950s under Rudolf Laban. After completing her studies Marion joined the Studio’s faculty, where she specialised in the detailed observation of human behavioural movement. She became apprenticed to Laban, developing a test for assessment of personality through the analysis of physical behaviour and pioneering creative movement in the workplace as recreational activity for industrial workers. Throughout her life Marion continued to promote, develop and disseminate Rudolf Laban’s work, most notably at universities in the USA. 

Marion took up the position of Head of Dance at Sidney Webb College, London, in 1962, a post she held for 10 years before leaving to become Head of the Dance Department at Goldsmiths College. In 1973, on Lisa Ullmann’s retirement, Marion concurrently became Principal of the Art of Movement Studio, renaming the institution the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance and relocating it to New Cross in South East London. She moved the Centre from its then home in Addlestone as she felt that a metropolitan context was a better place than the leafy suburbs to develop contemporary artists.  

Under Marion’s directorship, the Laban Centre developed to become a world leader in the education and training of dance artists and scholars; Marion took her direct experience of Rudolf Laban’s heritage and refreshed and re-defined it to ensure its survival and relevance in the current dance environment. In 1974 Marion invited Bonnie Bird, a former dancer with the Martha Graham Company and a passionate and innovative dance educator, to join her in reshaping the Laban Centre. Together, Bonnie and Marion established the Centre’s programmes to support the development of creative contemporary dance artists. In addition to their work at Laban, North and Bird jointly established the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund, which, from its inception, supported awards to help the development of emerging choreographers, recognising the need for artists at an early stage in their career to have time and resources to develop their own creative practice and artist research. 

Marion was a key figure in the development of the Council for Dance Education and Training (CDET), the body representing professional dance training and related educational interests in Britain, and she was the driving force behind securing government funding for undergraduate students wanting to study dance at professional level when the discretionary award scheme for dance training was discontinued in the mid-1990s. 

(Anonymous, n.d.) 

The Archive holds a range of objects which were given as gifts to Marion North between 1982 and 1995, demonstrating her popularity amongst a diverse range of colleagues and peers. 

Two Models of Chinese Opera Masks with a leaflet explaining the art of Chinese face painting.  

Two Textiles: one is a woven material the other is a floral pillowcase.  

Small Brass Vessel. 

This set of objects is a good example of the mysteries held in the Archive, and the importance of the stories which accompany these objects. We know these objects were gifts to Marion North, but we may never know the story of the floral pillowcase! 

Also on display is a CBE Medal (Commander of the British Empire). This demonstrates the recognition Marion North received for her contributions to research and the dance industry. 

There is also a Commemorative Plaque, given to Marion North by CORD (Congress on Research in Dance) in 1987. This again shows the value of her work in relation to advances in the understanding of movement. 

The Marion North collection was donated by Marion North directly. 

Rudolph Laban 

On top of the display cabinet we have placed a Bust of Rudolph Laban, sculpted by Willi Soukop. This is one of a series of sculptures also depicting Kurt Joos and Marion North. These figures are all pre-eminent practitioners in dance and relate to Laban’s history as an institution. 

There is also a Model of an Icosahedron featured in the display. This is a shape which Laban uses in its association with human anatomy to illustrate the range of the body in its kinesphere. This was donated by Martin Gleisner, ‘one of Laban’s earliest students and collaborators’ (Ullman, 1984, p. 20). More can be read about the Icosahedron and other Laban theories in books including Points of Departure by Valerie Preston-Dunlop (Preston-Dunlop, 1984), and Effort by Rudolph Laban (Lawrence, 1947), which are both contained in the Laban Library collection. 

The Laban Collection was compiled by Dr Valerie Preston-Dunlop in the 1980s specifically for the use of students at Laban and dance researchers in the UK. It consists mainly of copies of material held by private individuals and public archive bodies in Europe. Some items are original.  

(Fowler, 2010) 

Bonnie Bird 

In the display we have three objects relating to Bonnie Bird. 

Extract from Trinity Laban website (unknown author): 

Bonnie Bird (1914 –1995) was a member of the original Martha Graham Dance Company. She went on to become Graham’s principal assistant and one of the first recognised teachers of the Graham technique. After this she joined the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, at that time one of the most innovative institutions in the USA, as its Head of Dance. There she trained numerous people who became luminaries in dance, her most famous student being Merce Cunningham. In 1938 she married the eminent psychologist, Ralph Gundlach. 

After the war Bonnie Bird pursued her dual involvement in developing contemporary dance through university dance college programmes and community arts centres. She was a founder member and a president of the American Dance Guild, as well as The Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). All this underlines Bonnie Bird’s fundamental philosophy for dance, in which she stresses the equal importance of the practical and theoretical elements for the training of the professional dancer. 

In 1974, at the age at which most people retire, she was invited by Marion North, Principal of Laban, to become Director of the Dance Theatre Department. Here she was able to apply and develop her theories on dance training by helping to institute Britain’s first BA (Hons) degree in Dance Theatre Studies, and subsequently Britain’s first MA and PhD degrees in Dance Studies. In 1982 Bonnie Bird founded Transitions Dance Company, Britain’s foremost professional training company for young dancers. She remained Artistic Director until her death in 1995. 

(Anonymous, n.d.) 

The first object presented is a Silver Bowl presented to Bonnie Bird by Laban students in 1982. It is engraved with the message, ‘For Bonnie Love BA3 1982’. This was donated to us as part of the Marion North Collection and represents the importance of and appreciation for Bonnie Bird’s pedagogical practice. In the Archive we also have a wide range of photographs of Bonnie Bird dancing and the Theatre in the Laban Building is also named after her. 

The next object relating to Bonnie Bird is a Metal Statuette of a woman on a stone base presented in 1984 by the American Dance Guild for Bonnie Bird’s seventieth birthday. 

Finally, a large, gold, bowl-shaped Trophy: the Distinguished Dance Award granted to Bonnie Bird by the American Dance Guild in 1990.  

If you would like to view these objects in person, please do visit the Laban Library and have a look at the display case near the entrance.  

If you are interested in viewing more materials from the Archive, get in touch (labanlibrary@trinitylaban.ac.uk) and we can help advise you on what is available relating to your research. 

References: 

Anonymous. (n.d.). Bonnie Bird. Retrieved April 26, 2024 https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/about 

us/history/bonnie-bird/ 

Anonymous. (n.d.). Marion North. Retrieved April 26, 2024, from 

 Lawrence, F. C., & Laban, R. von. (1947). Effort. Macdonald & Evans. 

Preston-Dunlop, V. (1984). Point of departure: The dancer’s space. Lime Tree Studios. 

Ullman, L. (1984). Martin Gleisner – a tribute. Movement and Dance magazine of the Laban Guild. 72, 20- 22.