Customer Reviews

Points in Space [VHS]

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4 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

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!

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

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.

Points in Space is not the most recent of Merce Cunningham's work (for which you should see "A Lifetime of Dance") but it represents another example of how Cunningham and Cage seized upon and experimented with any and every new medium that might bring their respective arts to a wider discerning audience. In this case, television.

Both emerged from the avant garde that vigorously swept America in the 1950s, (yielding such other notorieties as Kenton/Rob Graettinger of "City of Glass" fame). Both worked tirelessly to move forward from the stagnant position their art wallowed in. Both made demands of musicians and dancers hitherto unknown - and one might particularly highlight the inordinate difficulties posed by Cunningham whose choreography took in indeterminism and improvisation.
This video is an intriguing view of the way Cunningham worked - appropriate because he was quick to seize on video as a viable medium to present dance. (Much later he was to collaborate with IBM on computer choreography software). I believe the programme was originally made for the BBC.
This video is definitely not for the person unable to embrace the avant garde and ensuing artistic upheaval! For those who can appreciate its cultural importance, its message (which is always greater than the sum of the parts) this is a must. Cunningham and Cage will long exert their influence on Art in ways that are now probably taken for granted. This film is a well-documented moment in that process.

I have seen this video for the purpose of writing a paper for my modern dance class. The reason that I didn't give it a five-star was because I thought it would be like a given-modern dance class routine before the actual production. However, it was the opposite where Cunningham went through only the necessary movements of modern dance with each dancer during the rehearsals before the actual production. There were too much ballet steps that were combined with modern dance movements. And, I thought some parts of the interview from BBC weren't helpful for my purpose of writing the dance paper. However, I somehow enjoyed watching the video. If you truly love dance, and not just for writing a paper about it, this video is certainly helpful for you to own.

Merce Cunningham, and particulary John Cage, have nothing to say. This work is an exercize in nihilism; it means nothing. Cage wants his "music" to be uninfluenced by him. Why write then? The "music" is a series of words minus vowels, manipulated by computer to be void of any suggestion of real words or sounds, let alone any musicality.

The music and choreography, per Cage in the interviews included, were written with no knowledge of the other. This is not hard to believe.

I bought the tape to use in a Survey of the Humanities course. I will probably use it, or part of it, but as an example of bad modern art. These old men in this film are fraudulent. Pitiful.

There are two positives. One, it shows the difficulties of filming dance. Movement seen on a stage vs on a screen are point-of-view difficult. Two, the film accurately reflects parts of the contemporary art world: Devoid of meaning and happy to thrash around in excrement.