Product Details

• Actors: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Elliot Caplan, BBC Television
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: April 16, 1995
• Run Time: 56 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301629825
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,422 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A modern dance classic!, May 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Points in Space [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Merce Cunnigham is one of the modern masters of modern dance. Points in Space is all you've imagined modern dance to be and more! The program is about the rehearsal and making of a video piece based on the work, which is included at the end of the tape in complete and finished form. A complete work, the videotape takes us through rehearsal, elaboration and filming of this video dance project. It shows Merce working with the dancers during practice, and going through the choreography. Then it shows the actual filming, of the piece in a studio. The actual finished work is presented at the end. The dancers are transformed as they don the close fitting costumes of autumn in which the work will be filmed. The soundtrack is the sound of breathing and of the the wind. The effect is uncanny and mesmerizing. If you like dance, see this video!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars deeply absorbing, what can be dance?, October 28, 2003

By 

scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Points in Space [VHS] (VHS Tape)

After all these decades of, books, discussion and vibrant example of the import of the avant-garde, where it has become institutionalized we still find those perplexed and angered by John Cage and Merce Cunningham, their working methods,spirit, artistic affinities, and expanding perceptive means of what can be art.
In art, music or dance all there is,for the modern, or post-modern is the frame,(the stage, or the musical work) the duration of something, you have tones that are High or Middle or Low,Coloured (a Flute, A Cello) Loud or Soft,Short, Long or Not-So-Long, or Very Long, Textured,Thorny, Shaped, or Un-Shaped,Wistful, OverWhelming,or Passive. In Dance you have Motion, Fast Slow, variegated,clean, threadbare,lyrical or convoluted. When you see the Cunningham Dancers Dance you can sense that their movements comes from someplace,the repertoire associated with Martha Graham still exists here like a "ghost", "spectre".And Cunningham's fascinating lifeworld is to see how the human body can move? what is motion?what it can be? and visually it is always deeply absorbing, what is dancing together? It is far from improvised as most/may think, It is highly structured and precise.And there is a great deal of discretion imparted within the working out or the dance. The revolution of the 20th Century was to make all the various dimensions in art, motion, time, durations, timbre, sounds, words, all independent,so they can become something magical, or simply interesting, yet they all do meet someplace. Cage and Cunningham having been honing their/these methods since the early Sixties,(largely ignored at first by so-called savy NYCity critics) when they gave their first tour of Europe in a Volkswagon Bus altogether.

"Points in Space" is actually not as experimental as other dances I've seen as the earth shattering "Winterbranch",or "Rainforest" in the Cunningham repertoire. I found this VHS deeply lyrical,suggesting something very old, primitive, yet civilized, beautiful in the traditional sense, with fine elegant imparted lines,shaped, coordinated moments, phrases,solos, duets, and trios, then the entire company enters with punctuations.There is also elegant counterpoint of moments with a foreground interests and a more accompanimental background quartet of dancers. There are then personalities"spirits" "energies" that do emerge from the company.You can almost call them poetic. But quietly, not wanting to interrupt the seamless affect/effect of the dance of others. Merce then appears toward the end of the dance, deeply limited from age, yet deeply inspirational in that he moves, He has developed more an interesting use of hand an arm swishes into the air, shaping the space of the air around his body. Sharp, fast quick motions with the arms.

The fact that the dance was videotaped I though was the least interesting aspect of it.

Cage's music/timbral accompaniment entitled "Voiceless Essay" is simply his voice that was permuted through the computer of consonants(he consciously took out the vowels) from the texts of Thoreau,after he selected items from his writings through Mesostics, that's a spine like word, running down the page vertically to help "guide" the words. We hear whispers, hisses, sighs, wind timbres, ellipses, glides. It is beautiful it gives the dance a sense of rest, of repose, actually, deeply moving

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning Experience, January 13, 2001

By 

an amateur soprano (Walnut, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Points in Space [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Cunningham's fine dance production is a learning experience for anyone who appreciates modern dance. There's an ABC interview included in this dance production that helped viewers understand who the production staff and processes are. You'll see as watching this video that the choreography, sound effects, and dance movements are as origianl as they can be.