i saw merce friday night. first of all, that harman hall is really amazing. dc is lucky to have such a gorgeous new performance hall right downtown.
ok, about the performance itself…i had a lot to say, but some has dissipated by now. i enjoyed it a lot, much more than i expected to. i hadn’t even planned on going initially, but got a free ticket at the last minute. the pieces were great–crwdspcr, second hand, and eyespace. the first in particular struck me as classic merce: absolutely unemotional, no clear relationships between the dancers, just clean, clear movements and a constant interweaving of dancers.
that’s what i took away from the entire show: finally, an understanding that merce’s work is only about pure movement, with nothing that can be interpreted as feelings, relationships, narrative, or even a connection to the music. just movement–although, frankly, i find that the movements he uses are not all that interesting to me, not all that inventive. they seem overwhelmingly based on ballet and a handful of clear, simple forms that fail to come close to utilizing the wide range of human movement. but then again, perhaps if one is trying to avoid creating any sense of emotion, it makes sense to steer clear of more evocative movement styles.
i also found that merce frequently seemed to transcend basic conventions about things like timing–for example, the transitions between movements within a piece often happened very quickly, without waiting the typical “beat, beat” as one section ended, before the other began. it seemed like there were a number of times when he failed to do things the “normal” way, and at first it struck me as jarring, as if he’d done something wrong. but i began to wonder then if i tend to find something attractive simply b/c it’s what i’m used to, done in the way that’s considered “good,” but that doesn’t necessarily have any innate aesthetic appeal.
it brought to mind a quote that john cage, merce’s partner in life and art, supposedly once said. to paraphrase, “i asked myself the reason why i found a particular thing beautiful, and when i looked more closely, there was none.” ie, nothing is inherently more beautiful, at it’s core, than anything else. anything can be beautiful. i’m familiar with this feeling–actually, i stopped participating in the field (the lab for watching and discussing choreography) b/c i found that anything could become beautiful to me if i watched it enough, and so i lost the ability to view pieces critically. that leads me to think, then, that if anything can be beautiful, the only element that’s vital in creating good and compelling art is remaining committed to an idea–sticking w/ it so that the parts cohere to the whole. and being honest w/ one’s self when something is filler vs when it genuinely contributes to the thrust of the piece.
one question the performance raised for me was about why we make art. a big reason i’m interested in art is the ability of the artist to move the observer emotionally. but b/c merce’s work isn’t about emotion, it’s appeal is largely aesthetic and intellectual–and i’m not sure most people can appreciate that. maybe that’s why people say merce is ahead of his time.
he was onstage that night, and i was really impressed w/ him. he got a chance to say a few things (despite a moderator who seemed uneasy about giving him the mic) and his insight and breadth of vision–even at 89–really struck me.
what’s interesting is that i’d thought i finally “got” merce and what’s he’s about–simply movement, no interpretation, etc–and then the next morning there was a review in the ny times about thursday’s performance in dc. and what it said was that the 2nd piece, second hand, actualy has a theme–the death of socrates! wow, that was a shock. that’s about as opposite of the “no meaning” idea as one could get.
and i heard later that merce’s longtime principal dancer, carolyn brown, suspected that merce always had a theme/meaning in mind for his dances, but that he never told anyone for fear of influencing how they approached the dance.
