It is generally agreed that modern dance was born in the United States, created by Isadora Duncan, and, perhaps, about the same time, Loie Fuller. Then Martha Graham; Doris Humphrey; Charles Weidman; José Limón (while born in Mexico, Limón moved to the U.S. at a young age); Katherine Dunham; and, of course, Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis, among many others, followed as the pioneers of the art form. Shawn founded Jacob’s Pillow in 1931, and from then on, he and his partner Ruth St. Denis, in addition to choreographing themselves, brought all kinds of dance to Jacob’s Pillow, including modern dance. The Pillow was a haven for dancers experimenting with the form, including, very importantly, St. Denis, who had been a modern dancer long before the Pillow. St. Denis and Shawn had a profound impact on all modern dancers, as well as on the public’s appreciation for modern dance.
Thus, it was entirely fitting that the Pillow would showcase the choreography of another giant of modern dance, Merce Cunningham, and do so in a way that would have made Shawn and St. Denis proud: by educating the audience at the same time they were being entertained. “Merce Cunningham, Liz Gerring, Kyle Abraham: Three Duets” took place on Friday, July 12, on a beautiful evening on the (outdoor) Henry J. Leir Stage.
The program was initially produced for “In Conversation with Merce” by the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Merce Cunningham Trust (Cunningham passed away in 2009) for digital performance during the pandemic, and this was its first live performance. The essential idea was that Jamie Scott, a dancer from the Cunningham Company, and now the Cunningham Trust, would extract and connect duet material from an ensemble Cunningham piece from 1972 called “Landrover,” and then two accomplished choreographers, Liz Gerring and Kyle Abraham, would make their own work “in conversation” with that piece. The choreographers were given free rein, the only limitation being that each had to make a duet.
Cunningham pushed concepts of performance to the breaking point. He would produce “events,” which were performances where the dancers often would not know what pieces, or parts of pieces, they would be dancing until just before the performance. They would also not necessarily know what they would be wearing, nor what the lighting would be, nor, critically, what the music or sound would be (if any!) until they went on stage. Often the sound accompaniment would be entirely random, a radio station that was arbitrarily tuned to just before the dancers went on, for example. The fundamental way all the elements of the performance were “connected” was simply that they were all happening in the same space at the same time. Chance, fortuitousness, and randomness all had a part to play.
Cunningham also developed his own dance technique, which generally had the principles of ballet at its foundation, but which bent, twisted, and curved all parts of the body into shapes decidedly not balletic. Generally, Cunningham was most interested in the shapes dancers got into and how, and how long, they held them. Cunningham’s dynamic sense, his phrasing, and his internal rhythm were also entirely unique. A dancer would hold a shape for a period, and then perhaps dart around the space until he or she assumed another shape. It was completely artificial, but the miracle of Merce was that he somehow was able to make it all make sense.
All these Cunningham ingredients were on display during this performance. First, the movement in the “Landrover” duet was classic Cunningham. And the music for the duet, which was composed by John King and Anaïs Maviel, gave a nod to the music used in the original piece, but the composition was new. With nice symmetry, the dancers in the duet learned the piece, and rehearsed it, without the music. Thus, when they performed with the King and Maviel music, they were essentially in a Cunningham event.
While Gerring did use music in her piece “Dialogue,” Abraham chose not to have music accompany his work, “Motorrover.” During the post-performance talk, Jacob’s Pillow Director of Preservation Norton Owen, who moderated the talk, remarked that the universe, in the form of the sounds coming from nature during Abraham’s piece, accompanied the work beautifully and, in true Cunningham fashion, by chance and randomly, but somehow connected.
It was evident that choreographers Gerring and Abraham had been strongly influenced by Cunningham, as so many others have. It was also clear they were completely comfortable with Cunningham’s vocabulary and his concepts. Each fully appreciated, absorbed, and unmistakably incorporated Cunningham’s steps from the duet and his dynamics, timing, and rhythm, into their pieces, while pushing the choreographic conversation to the absolute limit, and still staying true to their own choreographic principles and creative selves. It was impressive.
And, as has been consistently true at the Pillow so far this summer, the dancing was excellent. This viewer was very pleasantly surprised by how much like “Cunningham dancers” Jacquelin Harris and Chalvar Monteiro looked in the “Landrover” duet, given that Cunningham passed away 15 years ago. It seems that the Cunningham tradition is being kept alive very successfully by the Trust. Harris also had a looseness in her head and shoulders that, while not truly Cunningham, was wonderful. Mariah Anton-Arters and Cemiyon Barber had the attack and the softness that Gerring’s piece “Dialogue” required, and they worked well together. Tamisha A. Guy and Catherine Kirk were so effortlessly quiet on their feet in “Motorrover” that the audience remained utterly reverent and hushed throughout.
“Merce Cunningham, Liz Gerring, Kyle Abraham: Three Duets” at Jacob’s Pillow was a sparkling little gem of a performance, both as pure entertainment and as education. It is wonderful that these kinds of gems are available at Jacob’s Pillow all summer.
