- Additional Authors
- Found In
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Description
- 1 streaming audio file (61 minutes) : digital, mono
- Summary
- Merce Cunningham speaks to an audience related to the Voice of America broadcast institution about the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's four week tour [in January of 1971] to Chicago's Civic [Opera House], Mills College, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Los Angeles; brief descriptions of the theaters, performances and classes they taught while on tour; briefly lists performance venues in New York; his perspective on the development of performance opportunities for modern dance companies in the United States, especially through touring university and college settings on the "gymnasium circuit"; briefly describes his Company's tours using a Volkswagen bus to travel with both dancers and props; changes to many university dance departments' curriculums and students' training as a result of the increasing modern dance companies' tours; announces that the film of Variations V (1965) will be presented tomorrow; speaks about the commission, conception and premiere of Variations V for the New York Philharmonic French-American Festival; John Cage's explorations and use of electro-acoustic sounds for Variations V, as well as David Tudor's assistance as a collaborative musician; Cage and Tudor's use of stage microphones to produce sounds based on the dancer's movements; tells a brief anecdote on Bob Moog's participation in the piece; more on how dancers trigger the sounds and the musicians control the dynamics of the sounds; describes the stage design for Variations V, including media elements; the upright architectural shape of human bodies, and, in particular, his opinion of the American dancer's physical tendencies; the physical mechanics of everyday movements and how certain dance movements are develped from these; technique as a way to extend natural movements rather then restrict movement; his interest in the particularities of weight and density in movement; his perspective on how television impacts the way bodies are framed and seen as related to documenting dance; [30:56-31:00, recording gap]; briefly, his choreographic use of theater in the round and how he sees this relating to recent scientific and technological advancements; a brief anecdote about an incident while on a vaudeville tour when he was 16; briefly, his Company's visit to the school in Dartington, U.K., in the summer of 1964, including the connections between Cornish College of the Arts, where Cunningham studied, and Dartington; a brief anecdote on being a student of Mrs. [Nellie Centennial] Cornish; his usual answer to the question of how he makes a dance; his choreographic decision making process as he starts to make a piece; his perspective on warming up the body for dance; list of basic human movement possibilities [while repeating the list verbally, gives examples of the movements and moves away from the microphone]; [returns to microphone] continues to describe basic human movements and levels, especially in relation to the ground; the dancer's discipline of daily practice and technique class; Cunningham's personal daily conditioning routine alongside technique classes, including his meditation practice; his perspective on how technique and "freeness" relate in dancing; dancing as an act of concentration; the dancer's usual methods of counting music as compared to Cunningham's use of a stopwatch to time sections; lists section times for his work Suite for Five (1956), and briefly, how the length of Field Dances (1963) is determined right before each performance; an anecdote on David Tudor's use of several timers while playing piano in performance [audience laughter]; the accuracy of the dancers' timing in repertory pieces, despite the sometimes long breaks between performing these pieces; briefly describes the proscenium stage and the idea of a steady place from which all actions radiate; his artistic interest in expanding the plane of actions in a dance piece to incorporate multiplicities of perspectives and activities within a broader spatial landscape; he recites a brief remark on dance by Ruth St. Denis during a talk to students [audience laughter]; recent performances in the New York City dance and theater communities using pedestrian movement and non-dancers, especially visual artists; his choreographic philosophies and practices as related to movement, time, and space; his Company presenting repertory in various types of venues; [56:00-56:02 recording gap]; [continues mid-sentence] lists the pieces that comprise an Event in a particular performance evening; an example of performing an Event in a gymnasium, including how performers and audience experience it as different from performances in a conventional theater; [58:27-58:35, two tapping sounds]; more on the public's increasing interest in and familiarity of [modern] dance; differences between modern dance companies as shaped by individual [directors'] visions. [60:03-end, clapping].
- Uniform Title
- Voice of America forum lectures. Visual arts.
- Alternative Title
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Speeches.
- Note
- Title provided by cataloger based on audition and handwritten notes on original container.
- Sound quality is fair, the speaker is mostly audible but at times low in volume. The recording is marred by extraneous noise including "tape hiss" and occasional short gaps that cut into the speaker's talk. The audience is occasionally heard laughing as a response to the speaker in the recording.
- Label affixed to original container: "Voice of America, United States Information Agency ; U.S. Information service, American Embassy [address]". Handwritten note on original container: "Merce Cunningham Lecture, COPY".
- Donor's inventory number: R015.
- Access (note)
- Patrons can access streaming audio only on site at NYPL Research Libraries.
- Event (note)
- Recording location and context of this lecture are unidentified.
- Source (note)
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation
- Linking Entry (note)
- Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Call Number
- *LT-7-A 2345
- OCLC
- 880581026
- Author
Cunningham, Merce, speaker.
- Title
Lecture, Voice of America recording / by Merce Cunningham.
- Production
February 11, 1971.
- Playing Time
010115
- Type of Content
spoken word
- Type of Medium
audio
- Type of Carrier
audiotape reel
online resource
- Digital File Characteristics
audio file
- Event
Recording location and context of this lecture are unidentified.
- Original Version
Archival original: (1 audiotape reel (66 minutes) : analog, 3 3/4 ips, full track, mono ; 7 in.) in *LT-7-A 2345.
- Restricted Access
Patrons can access streaming audio only on site at NYPL Research Libraries.
- Linking Entry
Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Local Note
Transferred from original open tape reel by the New York Public Library's Audio and Moving Image Preservation (PAMI) sound engineering staff at the Library for the Performing Arts on January 17, 2014. To create the streaming file, the sound engineers edited out the recording silences in the preservation file, thus the discrepancies in length between the preservation file and the streaming file.
- Source
Gift; Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, 2011-2012.
- Connect to:
- Added Author
Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, donor.
- Added Title
Voice of America forum lectures. Visual arts.
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials.
- Found In:
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Research Call Number
*LT-7-A 2345