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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
deeply absorbing, what can be dance?, October 28, 2003
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
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