Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05

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Title
Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05
Names
Merce Cunningham Dance Company (Associated name)
Cunningham, Merce (Interviewee)
Vaughan, David, 1924- (Interviewer)
Collection

Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials

Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1980-09-05
Library locations
Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound
Shelf locator: *LTC-A 1446
Topics
Cunningham, Merce
Martha Graham Dance Company
Choreography
Genres
Interviews
Notes
Content: David Vaughan interviews Merce Cunningham, probably in [New York, New York], on September 5, 1980. This interview was created as research for David Vaughan's book, Merce Cunningham: Fifty years (New York, Aperture).
Content: Title and dates provided by cataloger based on audition and handwritten and typed notes on original container.
Content: Handwritten and typed notes on original original container: "Merce Cunningham with D. Vaughan - Sept. 5/80 ; 1. Interview with Merce Cunningham ; 5 September 1980".
Venue: Originally recorded in, [New York, New York], 1980 September 5.
Acquisition: Gift; Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, 2011-2012.
Physical Description
Audiocassette
Extent: 1 audiocassette (36 minutes) : analog
Sound quality is mostly good; there are occasional background noises.
Description
Begins abruptly; Merce Cunningham speaks with David Vaughan about auditioning, with improvised tap dancing, for clubs in Boston; Cunningham speaks about rehearsing the play Him [by e.e. cummings] with a small theater group during his first year in the Martha Graham Dance Company; more about his first year with Graham, especially the outside performance activities of the dancers and tours with the Company; his observations of Martha Graham and some of the conventions at her school, including the dance wear; Cunningham recalls a photographic session of the duet with Dorothy Herrmann at the Mills College Greek theater; he speaks about seeing a performance in Seattle with Mrs. [Maude] Barrett of a Russian dance company; an anecdote on being a super[lative] performer in a Ballet Russe production of Petruchka in Seattle; briefly, his response to a Humphrey-Weidman Company performance he attended in Seattle; an anecdote on seeing a Ballet Caravan performance of Billy the kid in Seattle; Vaughan asks Cunningham about other dance performances in Seattle; Cunningham speaks about Nellie Cornish being instrumental in bringing dance performance to Seattle, including [Udi?] Shankar; Cunningham speaks about attending dance performances during his first year in New York including the inaugural season of Ballet Theatre; Cunningham speaks about stopping at art galleries during his walks home from ballet class at the School of American Ballet; he speaks briefly about formally meeting Marcel Duchamp after his marriage to "Teeny" [Alexina]; he tells an anecdote about Gyspy Rose Lee's entrance to a party at Peggy Guggenheim's apartment; he lists some of the influential painters in New York at that time, especially those that were acquainted with Guggenheim, and lists artists he knew through Black Mountain College; briefly, his admiration of Yves Klein; he briefly speaks about going to John Cage's lectures at the "8th street artists club" and he mentions other bars where artists congregated; a bar he would go to with Cage, "Bob" [Robert Rauschenberg], and "Jap" [Jasper Johns]; he speaks about meeting [Rauschenberg] at Black Mountain College; he speaks about reading [Antonin] Artaud's [Theatre and its double] with M.C. Richards at Black Mountain; Cunningham speaks about the influence of his theater training while at Cornish College, especially anecdotes about his theater professor, Alexander Koriansky; he speaks about the idea that drama is created by a gamut of contrasts in movement; he speaks about unifying the disparate movement within his works and keeping the whole in mind; Cunningham speaks about the theatricality of the rituals in the Catholic church of his childhood, including an anecdote on his being an altar boy and catching on fire; [brief interruption]; more on the theatricality of the church's ceremonies and garments.
Type of Resource
Sound recording
Languages
English
Identifiers
RLIN/OCLC: 913964999
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b20732914
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): d4bff2b0-b8fa-0133-cd2c-60f81dd2b63c
Rights Statement
This item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Item timeline of events

  • 1980: Created
  • 2024: Found by you!
  • 2025

MLA Format

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library. "Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1980. https://qa-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d8b5c420-b8fa-0133-014c-60f81dd2b63c

Chicago/Turabian Format

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library. "Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed November 22, 2024. https://qa-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d8b5c420-b8fa-0133-014c-60f81dd2b63c

APA Format

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library. (1980). Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05 Retrieved from https://qa-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d8b5c420-b8fa-0133-014c-60f81dd2b63c

Wikipedia Citation

<ref name=NYPL>{{cite web | url=https://qa-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d8b5c420-b8fa-0133-014c-60f81dd2b63c | title= (sound recording) Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05, (1980)|author=Digital Collections, The New York Public Library |accessdate=November 22, 2024 |publisher=The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations}}</ref>

Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05