Reports from the field: MERCE FAIR – Knight Foundation
Arts

Reports from the field: MERCE FAIR

Dancer Silas Riener is currently on tour with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Legacy Tour, a Knight Arts granteee. Today he checks in with his second (of several) reports from the field. By Silas Riener, Merce Cunningham Dance Company

It’s a last year of lasts for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The last time for this, the last time for that. The last BiPED, the last event. The last tour to Europe. The last show.

I thought about this a lot during our recent performance MERCE FAIR, part of Lincoln Center Festival. It was my first Lincoln Center performance with Merce (without Merce), and it had all of this agreeable symmetry, for it was the first place i had ever seen the company. My dance teacher from college had an extra ticket because of a cancellation, and she said, “you have to come. no questions.” It was Lincoln Center Festival 2005, and I saw the company perform “OCEAN,” which I didn’t know I would later perform, and would become one of my favorite projects. So thank you, Rebecca Lazier. I owe you.

Our return, after 6 summers, to Lincoln Center was different. Not the cool and sleek Merce of the mid-90s: OCEAN and BiPED and SCENARIO, etc. Impossible dance phrases, computer-generated movement, sexy and new. This was SQUAREGAME(1976) and DUETS (1980), late 70s early 80s Merce. Fun and Playful! Carefree and wacky, rehearsal clothes and duffel bag games. Herds of roving goats. Light fare. Merce fare. But don’t be fooled too hard.

Our two performances in the Rose Hall were but a small part of the offering for the day, which included all manner of things. Lectures on the Decor, a lighting installation, a showing of the Andy Warhol decor for Rainforest (1968), two performances by the Repertory Understudy Group, lectures and panels, exhibitions, and more! You could even learn a dance. Your cup runneth’d over. We pulled out all of the stops.

In the first section (the day was divided into 3 blocks) early-rising ticket holders were treated to a rare…treat. The opportunity to observe Cunningham Company Class, a hallowed and formidable tradition on show-days. And all days.

Class is one hour long. It used to be taught only by Merce. By the time I joined up, Merce and Robert Swinston, then assistant to the choreographer now the Director of Choreography, would alternate. After Merce died Robert, who has danced with and for Merce for over 30 years, took all the classes. Class is a set series of fixed excercises, performed with rhythm from the teacher. Robert bangs on a yoga block, or clap-snaps. Merce would sort of twinkle on the ballet bar.

On the one hand, this is private time, for us to get it together, and get ready to perform. It’s not performance, it’s preparation. It sometimes can be a little unsettling to be on display all the time, especially when you are preparing to be on display. This was us at our most on display, the most naked the work can be. it’s us doing our exercises, going through our daily affirmation to Merce. There’s nothing to hide behind (not even the curtain. I tried)

On the other hand, people seemed to respond to it so strongly. It’s a side of the company people don’t get to see because it’s so private, but it is an excellent way to showcase a huge part of Merce’s Legacy; the Cunningham Technique. What better way than to watch the company?

I still feel a little conflicted about it. Should this be something that people get to see? It certainly got us all out of our groove, to be observed in a normally closed-door situation. I’m sure we were all so busy feeling noticed we weren’t able to prepare in the same ritualized way that we usually do, that dancers, I believe, need to do.

But it was a hit. And I can’t honestly say that I think much of the future will be unobserved anyways. Not sure what Shroedinger’s cat would have done with a webcam.

Merce used his classes to train his dancers, and as a sort of laboratory for experimenting with a lot of movements that would later make it into his dances. It’s not clear to me whether or not he would have opened up the classes to observing viewers, although he did make technique videos (purchasable here) and he did bring cameras into the studio to document his classes at the end of his life, through the Mondays with Merce series (viewable, and excellent, here)

So there ya go. Probably a little bit more than you wanted to know. Our next stop in Mexico City, at the end of august, followed by Bard College.

Some reviews of MERCE FAIR, not all good:

The Cunningham Dance Foundation has also generously given permission for Knight Arts to host the following excerpts:

  • Excerpt from “Duets” (1980) courtesy of Cunningham Dance Foundation, click here
  • Excerpt of “RainForest” (1968) courtesy of Cunningham Dance Foundation, click here

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