TitleInterview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05
NamesMerce Cunningham Dance Company (Associated name)Cunningham, Merce (Interviewee)Vaughan, David, 1924- (Interviewer)
CollectionMerce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials
Dates / OriginDate Created: 1980-09-05
Library locationsRodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded SoundShelf locator: *LTC-A 1446
TopicsCunningham, MerceMartha Graham Dance CompanyChoreography
GenresInterviews
NotesContent: 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 DescriptionAudiocassetteExtent: 1 audiocassette (36 minutes) : analogSound quality is mostly good; there are occasional background noises.
DescriptionBegins 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 ResourceSound recording
LanguagesEnglish
IdentifiersRLIN/OCLC: 913964999NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b20732914Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): d4bff2b0-b8fa-0133-cd2c-60f81dd2b63c
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