{"id":227,"date":"2004-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.idanca.net\/2004\/06\/23\/deslocando-humanos-as-multidoes-de-merce-cunningham\/"},"modified":"2008-07-04T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2008-07-04T17:57:09","slug":"deslocando-humanos-as-multidoes-de-merce-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idanca.net\/deslocando-humanos-as-multidoes-de-merce-cunningham\/","title":{"rendered":"Deslocando humanos: as multid\u00f5es de Merce Cunningham | Displacing \u2018Humans\u2019: Merce Cunningham\u2019s Crowds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Este ensaio foi originalmente publicado no Body, Space and Technology Journal<\/a> da Universidade de Brunel. No fim, reproduzimos a lista completa de refer\u00eancias como compilada pela autora em seu artigo.<\/p>\n

O impacto de tecnologias eletr\u00f4nicas na auto-imagem de agentes humanos produziu a ansiedade e o fasc\u00ednio a respeito da instabilidade dos limites do ser humano. Um artigo de capa na edi\u00e7\u00e3o de s\u00e1bado do The Guardian<\/em> publicou recentemente extratos do livro de Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines<\/em> (“A era das m\u00e1quinas espirituais”), que descreve um futuro ciborgue, onde, por volta de 2029, “a maior parte da comunica\u00e7\u00e3o n\u00e3o envolva um ser humano”, e em 2049, o uso onipresente da tecnologia de implantes neurais… gera enorme aumento das habilidades perceptivas e cognitivas humanas” (1999: 1-2). No campo da performance, a explora\u00e7\u00e3o das intera\u00e7\u00f5es entre int\u00e9rpretes vivos e tecnologia estimulam debates sobre a import\u00e2ncia relativa de inova\u00e7\u00f5es tecnol\u00f3gicas e a dimens\u00e3o humano\/emocional da performance, que \u00e9 visto \u00e0s vezes sob perigo de ser eclipsada. (1)”.<\/p>\n

Ao descrever a dan\u00e7a de Cunningham, onde, desde o final dos anos 90, a inform\u00e1tica foi empregada como uma ferramenta coreogr\u00e1fica, cr\u00edticos freq\u00fcentemente fazem uso de imagens sa\u00eddas tanto do mundo TI quanto do mundo natural. Os t\u00edtulos de Cunningham apontam tamb\u00e9m para estas fontes, por exemplo, Beach Birds<\/em> (1991), Enter<\/em> (1992), CRWDSPCR<\/em> (1993, renomeada depois de duas varia\u00e7\u00f5es no programa “Crowd Spacer” and “Crowds Pacer”), Pond Way<\/em> (1998), e BIPED<\/em> (1999), cujo t\u00edtulo foi tirado de um dos m\u00f3dulos do “Character Studio”, o software de anima\u00e7\u00e3o de figuras criado por Michael Girard e Susan Amkraut, da Unreal Pictures<\/em>.(2) Cunningham recebe atualmente uma recep\u00e7\u00e3o cr\u00edtica \u00e0s vezes no limite da adula\u00e7\u00e3o. Comemorou seu 80\u00ba anivers\u00e1rio em 2002, mas \u00e9 considerado por uma massa cr\u00edtica de core\u00f3grafos, novos e velhos, assim como por cr\u00edticos, como estando na vanguarda de novos desenvolvimentos na dan\u00e7a. Entretanto, seu trabalho inicial nos 1940 e 50, e atrav\u00e9s dos 1960, provocou freq\u00fcentemente forte oposi\u00e7\u00e3o, e seu trabalho recente reacendeu as cr\u00edticas dos primeiros momentos, particularmente a respeito do que \u00e9 percebido como falta de emo\u00e7\u00e3o humana, que pode alienar alguns espectadores. Por exemplo, Tresca Weinstein comentou em 1998: “o que \u00e9 arrepiante sobre Cunningham \u00e9 a aus\u00eancia da emo\u00e7\u00e3o. Seus bailarinos movem-se como cole\u00e7\u00f5es bem-montadas de partes do corpo, energizadas por for\u00e7a natural ou mec\u00e2nica, mas sem vontade ou desejo pr\u00f3prios”.(3)<\/p>\n

Muito no come\u00e7o, Cunningham se determinou, atrav\u00e9s do movimento, a descobrir novos par\u00e2metros do “humano”. Isto significou frustrar expectativas das plat\u00e9ias sobre expressionismo, conte\u00fado e estrutura narrativa, e deslocar rela\u00e7\u00f5es familiares ao corpo humano no movimento com tempo e espa\u00e7o. Estes assaltos foram vistos freq\u00fcentemente por contempor\u00e2neos como ataques ao “humano” em si, particularmente em contraste com a “doyenne” da dan\u00e7a moderna, Martha Graham. Escrevendo em 1968 sobre as rea\u00e7\u00f5es a Cunningham em 1953, Jill Johnson disse que “uma das palavras-chaves era humano. Havia muita discuss\u00e3o sobre o que significou ser humano. . . sentiram, suponho, que Merce amea\u00e7ou o conceito que tinham do que significava ser humano” (1968: 21). Em 1964, um cr\u00edtico escreveu que “Graham est\u00e1 preocupada principalmente com os seres humanos, com relacionamentos humanos, a causa e o efeito do comportamento humano. Mas parece n\u00e3o haver um conte\u00fado interno [nos trabalhos de Cunningham ]; parecem superficiais” (Hutchinson, 1964: 621)”.<\/p>\n

Cunningham viveu uma parceria pessoal e art\u00edstica com John Cage, de 1942 at\u00e9 a morte deste em 1992, e a estrutura n\u00e3o-m\u00e9trica da m\u00fasica de Cage pode ter sido um fator importante a permitir que a coreografia de Cunningham se afastasse das estruturas dram\u00e1ticas de conflito e defini\u00e7\u00e3o, causa e efeito, cl\u00edmax e anticl\u00edmax. Cunningham v\u00ea o famoso “princ\u00edpio da sorte”, inspirado pelo I Ching, e adotado por ele e por Cage, como sendo o que o permitiu transcender os limites de suas motiva\u00e7\u00f5es individuais para descobrir novos m\u00e9todos coreogr\u00e1ficos. Seu uso recente de TI (como no software Life Forms<\/em>, desde 1991, e na capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento, desde 1997) \u00e9 muito um continuum<\/em>, como ele mesmo disse, de seu princ\u00edpio da sorte, embora o uso da capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento (visto em BIPED<\/em>, que estreou em 1999), levante tamb\u00e9m novas quest\u00f5es, que eu discutirei abaixo. Al\u00e9m disso, as possibilidades oferecidas pela televis\u00e3o e sua influ\u00eancia em nossas modalidades de percep\u00e7\u00e3o s\u00e3o vistas por Cunningham como central a seu m\u00e9todo de funcionamento. Em 1977 foi citado por Anna Kisselgoff como dizendo: “uma coisa n\u00e3o deve necessariamente seguir outra. Melhor dizendo, qualquer coisa pode seguir qualquer coisa. N\u00f3s vemos isso na televis\u00e3o a toda hora. No s\u00e9culo 20, esta nova continuidade \u00e9 parte da vida que n\u00f3s vivemos” (Jordan, 1999: 62). Continua a enfatizar a import\u00e2ncia crucial para ele da influ\u00eancia da televis\u00e3o. A revista Wired News<\/em> relatou recentemente: “A [Paul] Kaiser, Cunningham disse ter visto BIPED<\/em> como trabalhando a id\u00e9ia de “surfar” nos canais da televis\u00e3o. Este motivo era aparente na demonstra\u00e7\u00e3o. As frases s\u00e3o combinadas e recombinadas e as escalas e trajetos est\u00e3o em fluxo constante. A tela frontal cai lentamente em linhas, em contraste agudo com os movimentos irregulares r\u00e1pidos dos bailarinos (Scarry, 1999a)”.<\/p>\n

Em 1952, Cunningham afirmava que o “m\u00e9todo (da sorte) pode conduzir \u00e0 suspeita de que o resultado seja possivelmente geom\u00e9trico e abstrato, irreal e n\u00e3o-humano. Ao contr\u00e1rio, \u00e9… n\u00e3o mais abstrato do que ser humano \u00e9, e quanto \u00e0 realidade, \u00e9 o que \u00e9, n\u00e3o est\u00e1 abstra\u00eddo de algo mais, mas \u00e9 a pr\u00f3pria coisa, e, al\u00e9m disso, permite que cada bailarino seja t\u00e3o humano quanto \u00e9 (1997: 87). A precis\u00e3o seca desta declara\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e9 t\u00edpica dos pronunciamentos de Cunningham sobre seu pr\u00f3prio trabalho, que promovem uma vis\u00e3o fortemente Zen ou fenomenol\u00f3gica de sua dan\u00e7a, destacando o valor da presen\u00e7a, do que se chama “each thing-ness” (1997: 87). Cunningham declarou que:<\/p>\n

“Eu n\u00e3o sou mais filos\u00f3fico do que minhas pernas, mas delas eu detecto este fato: que est\u00e3o cheias de energia que pode ser liberada no movimento… de que a forma que o movimento faz est\u00e1 al\u00e9m da capacidade de an\u00e1lise da minha mente mas desobstru\u00eddo a meus olhos e rico na minha imagina\u00e7\u00e3o. Um homem \u00e9 uma criatura b\u00edpede – mais basicamente e intimamente do que \u00e9 qualquer outra coisa. E suas pernas falam mais do que eles ‘sabem’ (1997: 86). <\/em><\/p>\n

Em linha com este racioc\u00ednio, eu sugerirei que as dan\u00e7as de Cunningham de fato filosofam de forma a apontar para conseq\u00fc\u00eancias mais radicais do que sua pretendida ancoragem no “each thing-ness”. Ao permitir que o bailarino seja apenas “t\u00e3o humano quanto \u00e9”, a coreografia de Cunningham de fato nos for\u00e7a a repensar rela\u00e7\u00f5es, n\u00e3o somente entre o espa\u00e7o e o tempo, mas entre o intencional e o movimento, o arbitr\u00e1rio e o proposital, e at\u00e9 entre o que n\u00f3s concebemos como do ser humano e as “outras” maneiras de se mover, notavelmente envolvendo intera\u00e7\u00f5es com o animal e formas computadorizadas do movimento. O efeito \u00e9 desestabilizante – literalmente – e desloca – literalmente – as id\u00e9ias que recebemos sobre o ser humano.<\/p>\n

A recep\u00e7\u00e3o marcantemente mais positiva do trabalho recente de Cunningham pode ser atribu\u00edda em parte \u00e0 necessidade largamente difundida de encontrar, como Cunningham coloca, a “complexidade, e n\u00e3o a confus\u00e3o”, em nossas vidas cotidianas (Jordon, 1999: 62), mas tamb\u00e9m \u00e0 urg\u00eancia da necessidade de resolver a rela\u00e7\u00e3o entre o humano e o tecnol\u00f3gico de forma que permita que n\u00f3s vejamos um futuro para o ser humano como n\u00f3s o conhecemos. Note o prazer do cr\u00edtico Joan Acocella, escrevendo na New Yorker<\/em> ano passado, assistindo a um programa de Cunningham que inclu\u00eda BIPED<\/em>: “no programa como um todo, com a companhia dan\u00e7ando t\u00e3o cheia de sentimento de encontro a um fundo de m\u00fasica eletr\u00f4nica e imagens de computador, n\u00f3s testemunhamos um cruzamento maior [do que entre o bal\u00e9 e a dan\u00e7a moderna]. As “duas culturas” de C.P. Snow, tecnologia e humanidade, a m\u00e1quina e a alma: amigas por uma noite!” (1999: 84). Mais tarde na cr\u00edtica, ele especula que Cunningham pode acreditar que h\u00e1 uma unidade no cosmos sobre a qual n\u00f3s n\u00e3o sabemos, e tamb\u00e9m que muitos de seus f\u00e3s pensam o mesmo. A plat\u00e9ia de Cunningham sempre foi extraordinariamente fervorosa, em parte porque seu trabalho implica uma f\u00e9 em que a pessoa possa acreditar e ainda assim dormir at\u00e9 tarde no domingo”(1999: 86).<\/p>\n

Os coment\u00e1rios cr\u00edticos n\u00e3o deixam nenhuma d\u00favida de que uma parte grande da atra\u00e7\u00e3o da dan\u00e7a de Cunningham para plat\u00e9ias contempor\u00e2neas se encontra em seu apelo a um tipo de imagina\u00e7\u00e3o ut\u00f3pica, enraizado no corp\u00f3reo, em que o ser humano se mistura com o natural (animal) e o tecnol\u00f3gico. De fato, alguns cr\u00edticos sugerem mesmo que determinados trabalhos de Cunningham transcendem o ser humano num espa\u00e7o c\u00f3smico, zen, que tem um efeito meditativo e reconciliador. Beach Birds<\/em> oferece “uma real\u00e7ada vis\u00e3o da realidade… suas criaturas no palco s\u00e3o super-reais” (Kisselgoff, 1992). \u00c9 “um movimento de medita\u00e7\u00e3o do mar visto da costa” (Valis Hill, 1992: 57). “Evoca um sentido de mundo calmo remoto, longe dos interesses humanos” (Sulcas, 1991: 27); “uma serenidade palpitante” (Vranish: 1994). Coment\u00e1rios similares foram feitos sobre Enter<\/em>. “Com Enter<\/em>, Cunningham mostra-nos a alegria devida de experimentar o momento evanescente, o significado, melhor que o sem sentido, de ser um mero gr\u00e3o nas areias do tempo, e da aprecia\u00e7\u00e3o da morte como um elemento inteiramente natural no ciclo de vida. Voc\u00ea sai de um encontro com tal trabalho, mais leve, livre, menos preso em seu self<\/em>, conectado mais a um cosmos que possa ser indecifr\u00e1vel, mas n\u00e3o mais proibido ou estrangeiro” (Tobias: 1993, 93).<\/p>\n

Muitos cr\u00edticos s\u00e3o tranq\u00fcilizados pelo que v\u00eaem como sendo Cunningham privil\u00e9gio do ser humano sobre o tecnol\u00f3gico, e seus coment\u00e1rios indicam um desejo de s\u00edntese hier\u00e1rquica, do tipo criticado por Derrida como um Aufhebung hegeliano<\/em>, onde o lado “inferior” da oposi\u00e7\u00e3o bin\u00e1ria \u00e9 subestimado em fun\u00e7\u00e3o de um todo maior.(4) “Com toda esta inven\u00e7\u00e3o computadorizada, Enter<\/em> \u00e9 uma celebra\u00e7\u00e3o n\u00e3o da tecnologia mas da flexibilidade triunfante da mente e do corpo humanos para crescer, mudar” (Robertson, 1994: 73). “O que ambos os homens [Cunningham e Tudor] parecem dizer [sobre Enter<\/em>] \u00e9: “n\u00f3s n\u00e3o fizemos esta pe\u00e7a”. \u00c9 intocada pelas m\u00e3os humanas. Sua m\u00e3e era um microchip. E, como \u00e9 usual no trabalho de Cunningham, a pe\u00e7a parece assustadoramente humana.” (Acocella:1993). Intersubjetividade \u00e9 vista como assumindo dimens\u00f5es ut\u00f3picas. “Os bailarinos [em Enter<\/em>], do alto de pernas longas e retas, assumem colora\u00e7\u00e3o de her\u00f3is, membros de alguma sociedade ut\u00f3pica do futuro” (Jowitt: 1993). Em CRWDSPR<\/em>, “os 13 bailarinos parecem uma turba em cima do palco, em uma multid\u00e3o idealizada. Os bailarinos apreciam a companhia um do outro, contudo definem seu pr\u00f3prio espa\u00e7o. As a\u00e7\u00f5es do indiv\u00edduo e do grupo acontecem simultaneamente. Os relacionamentos entre os bailarinos est\u00e3o no fluxo constante, contudo nunca h\u00e1 um sentido da perda. Embora a cena no palco esteja zumbindo com atividade, cada movimento est\u00e1 desobstru\u00eddo, caos sem embara\u00e7o (Goldner: 1994). CRWDSPR<\/em> foi descrito como o “Cunningham quando mais alegre… poderia ter sido hora de pico no metro de New York. Contudo era muito mais divertido, porque este caos aparente era organizado e contente” (Anderson e Dorris, 1994: 795). Por outro lado, outros v\u00eaem aliena\u00e7\u00e3o e desumaniza\u00e7\u00e3o no car\u00e1ter automatizado de alguns dos movimentos.” CRWDSPR<\/em>… com seus movimentos duros, com m\u00e3os de manequim e a pl\u00e1stica rob\u00f3tica, era quase opressivamente anti-humano. Somos n\u00f3s contra as m\u00e1quinas, eu pensei, e as m\u00e1quinas est\u00e3o ganhando” (Harding 1994).<\/p>\n

Entretanto, melhor que continuar a operando com oposi\u00e7\u00f5es bin\u00e1rias, conflitos e\/ou s\u00ednteses, tal como “n\u00f3s” e as “m\u00e1quinas”, a coreografia de Cunningham, pode se dizer, desloca categorias fixas. Muitos coment\u00e1rios cr\u00edticos em Cunningham de fato focalizam na indecis\u00e3o dos movimentos que envolvem intera\u00e7\u00f5es entre o ser humano, o “natural”, e o “automatizado”. Os bailarinos em Enter<\/em> foram descritos como “n\u00e3o exatamente anjos, mas tamb\u00e9m n\u00e3o exatamente humanos. Algo entre os dois” (Berman, 1994).Enter<\/em>… \u00e9 como algum fen\u00f4meno natural – um vulc\u00e3o, um oceano – exceto que n\u00f3s sabemos ser feito pelo homem. . . n\u00f3s pudemos estar testemunhando os processos geralmente invis\u00edveis do crescimento de planta” (Jowitt, 1993). De acordo com David Vaughan, Beach Birds<\/em> evoca n\u00e3o somente os movimentos de p\u00e1ssaros mar\u00edtimos mas tamb\u00e9m daqueles de seres humanos, e mesmo a arruma\u00e7\u00e3o das rochas no litoral” (Vaughan, 1995: 29). CRWDSPCR<\/em> sugere tanto utopia quanto caos, humanidade e tecnologia, de maneiras que minam estas oposi\u00e7\u00f5es. H\u00e1 algo festivo em CRWDSPCR<\/em> mesmo que os bailarinos freq\u00fcentemente se pare\u00e7am com brinquedos de corda com defeito”(5) [Em CRWDSPCR<\/em>]… os bailarinos andam com pequenos e caprichosos passos, como os andr\u00f3ides seguindo suas vidas em alguma lustrosa cidade do futuro… Todos parecem saber onde est\u00e3o indo e exatamente quanto tempo para se chegar l\u00e1, e todos est\u00e3o, de um jeito ou de outro, conectados entre si” (Mazo, 1994).<\/p>\n

Estes processos do deslocamento podem ser descritos segundo Derrida como “spacing” (espa\u00e7ar) ou “diff\u00e9rance” (diferen\u00e7a), em que os intervalos ou diferen\u00e7as s\u00e3o insinuados dentro das rela\u00e7\u00f5es em si mesma de uma entidade aparentemente auto-id\u00eantica. Derrida descreve o espa\u00e7ar em termos din\u00e2micos: “\u00e9 um movimento, um deslocamento que indica uma irredut\u00edvel alteridade. (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 200). \u00c9 ativo e passivo, j\u00e1 que n\u00e3o \u00e9 somente o intervalo… mas tamb\u00e9m espa\u00e7ar, a opera\u00e7\u00e3o, ou em qualquer caso, o movimento [minha \u00eanfase] de se separar”. “O espa\u00e7ar n\u00e3o \u00e9 universal, pois sua opera\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e9 distinta a cada vez que ocorre. Ao mesmo tempo, \u00e9 uma possibilidade necess\u00e1ria”. “Tal qual uma entidade \u00e9 o que \u00e9 somente ao se dividir do Outro, a quem se refere a fim de se constituir, espa\u00e7ar \u00e9 tamb\u00e9m um press\u00e1gio do significado oculto ou revelado” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 202). Ou seja, a rela\u00e7\u00e3o com o Outro n\u00e3o \u00e9 um aspecto incidental da identidade: \u00e9 uma condi\u00e7\u00e3o da possibilidade de toda a identidade, que, nas palavras de Derrida “sempre pronta” difere\/defere de si mesma. Por um lado, o termo espa\u00e7ar pode se referir \u00e0 exterioridade per se: \u00e9 “a abertura da primeira exterioridade geral, o relacionamento enigm\u00e1tico da vida ao seu outro, do interior ao exterior” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986:199). Por outro, o pr\u00f3prio termo indica um relacionamento particular \u00e0s condi\u00e7\u00f5es de espa\u00e7o-tempo, como afetadas pelo movimento. A produ\u00e7\u00e3o de intervalos que ocorre na atividade do afastamento marca a uma vez a “insinua\u00e7\u00e3o de um espa\u00e7o na presen\u00e7a supostamente auto-suficiente”, mas tamb\u00e9m no tornar-se-tempo do espa\u00e7o” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 198), seu deslocamento no tempo. O afastamento \u00e9 sobretudo uma atividade, um processo, um movimento, o que significa que n\u00e3o pode ser fixado e reduzido a nenhuma categoria sem\u00e2ntica particular. Isto n\u00e3o deve ser confundido com a no\u00e7\u00e3o da ambig\u00fcidade ou da polival\u00eancia: n\u00e3o \u00e9 que o significado seja vago, ou que diversas coisas s\u00e3o significadas na mesma, mas que nenhum significado conceitual pode esclarecer o processo do afastamento, que precede e interfere com as categorias conceituais.<\/p>\n

A coreografia de Cunningham difere e defere a progress\u00e3o temporal ao convidar a percep\u00e7\u00e3o atrav\u00e9s de momentos temporalmente discretos, com as t\u00e9cnicas que j\u00e1 s\u00e3o marcas registradas do estilo Cunningham, tais como transi\u00e7\u00f5es e as mudan\u00e7as abruptas de tempo e sentido que rompem as expectativas de padr\u00f5es humanos de movimento, tanto coreografados quanto di\u00e1rios. Isto pode ser visto como focalizando aten\u00e7\u00e3o no “presente”, de acordo com a pr\u00f3pria vis\u00e3o de Cunningham. Joan Acocella comenta que “porque A n\u00e3o est\u00e1 fluindo em B, n\u00f3s vemos realmente A” (1999: 86). Entretanto, a din\u00e2mica estrutural que excede e perturba a seq\u00fc\u00eancia linear e a progress\u00e3o n\u00e3o pode ela mesma ser resumida em uma corrente de presen\u00e7as puras “onde o tempo e o espa\u00e7o coincidem, porque os momentos espaciais eles mesmos s\u00e3o simultaneamente perturbados, outra vez atrav\u00e9s dos dispositivos familiares de Cunningham, tais como a plataforma descentralizada e as atividades m\u00faltiplas que desafiam a percep\u00e7\u00e3o unificada. “Espa\u00e7amentos” coreogr\u00e1ficos abrem tanto espa\u00e7o e quanto tempo a seu “exterior”, rendendo-os a si mesmos incomensur\u00e1veis mas impedindo tamb\u00e9m que sejam resumidos um no outro. Em Beach Birds<\/em>, por exemplo, as paradas interagem constantemente com o movimento, seq\u00fcencialmente e simultaneamente. Os movimentos min\u00fasculos insinuam intervalos temporais no espa\u00e7o, e a presen\u00e7a quase constante das paradas infiltra o movimento, insinuando o espa\u00e7o no tempo. O que est\u00e1 no prosc\u00eanio aqui n\u00e3o \u00e9 tempo nem espa\u00e7o em si, mas o deslocamento ativo destas categorias. Al\u00e9m disso, a categoria do “humano” mesma \u00e9 freq\u00fcentemente aberta para compreender as caracter\u00edsticas que podem ser pensadas como “exteriores”. Assim como “divide a presen\u00e7a do “agora” dentro si mesmo” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 202), o espa\u00e7amento divide a presen\u00e7a do “humano” em si mesmo. O uso que faz Derrida do termo “espa\u00e7amento” ajuda portanto a elucidar as maneiras como Cunningham orquestra opostos aparentes (tais como parada e movimento, espa\u00e7o e tempo, humano e n\u00e3o-humano), em seus processos coreogr\u00e1ficos, e as maneiras como os cr\u00edticos percebem qualidades aparentemente contradit\u00f3rias em seu trabalho.<\/p>\n

Os deslocamentos de Cunningham das oposi\u00e7\u00f5es de espa\u00e7o\/tempo e humano\/n\u00e3o-humano convergem de forma impressionante em suas coreografias para grupos e multid\u00f5es, onde o movimento constantemente dispersa e re-agrupa as configura\u00e7\u00f5es quasi-esculturais que consistem em indiv\u00edduos, pares e conjuntos, em padr\u00f5es que parecem ao mesmo tempo arbitr\u00e1rios e necess\u00e1rios. Um aspecto-chave do afastamento do “humano” est\u00e1 de fato no processo a que Cunningham divertidamente alude no t\u00edtulo de CRWDSPCR<\/em>: atrav\u00e9s dos movimentos diferenciais no tempo (“pacer”) e o espa\u00e7o (“spacer”), a polaridade de indiv\u00edduo e grupo \u00e9 deslocada na “multid\u00e3o” que evoca padr\u00f5es humanos e n\u00e3o-humanos – natural e\/ou computadorizados. O t\u00edtulo de CRWDSPCR<\/em>, de forma divertida, chama a aten\u00e7\u00e3o para o afastamento ling\u00fc\u00edstico com a remo\u00e7\u00e3o das vogais, que est\u00e3o presentes somente virtualmente, com sua aus\u00eancia, produzindo uma “multid\u00e3o” das letras elas mesmas na p\u00e1gina. Este interesse no jogo de palavras \u00e9 caracter\u00edstico de Cunningham. A influ\u00eancia de Joyce em Cage \u00e9 bem sabida, e Cage e Cunningham freq\u00fcentemente navegavam por Finnegan’s Wake<\/em> , que inspirou os t\u00edtulos de diversas de coreografias de Cunningham, come\u00e7ando com In the name of the holocaust<\/em>, em 1943, que Cunningham descreveu como o “um jogo de palavras com Joyce… em In the name of the Holy Ghost<\/em>.(6) Cunningham escreveu at\u00e9 uma “dance play” em 1943, chamada Four Walls<\/em>, cujos jogos de palavras mostram uma forte influ\u00eancia de Joyce (Vaughan, 1997: 34), onde as letras e os sons individuais s\u00e3o “coreografados” para dar forma a palavras novas.<\/p>\n

Em CRWDSPCR<\/em>, \u00e9 extremamente dif\u00edcil separar movimentos de grupo dos individuais. Quando um grande n\u00famero bailarinos est\u00e1 no palco, e os bailarinos individuais est\u00e3o executando movimentos completamente disparem, eles ainda assim funcionam como parte do grupo, uniforme no n\u00edvel b\u00e1sico de n\u00e3o colidir ao se mover muito r\u00e1pido e padr\u00f5es complexos num palco aglomerado (um momento do ensaio de capturado em v\u00eddeo (7) demonstra isso de tr\u00e1s para frente!). \u00c0s vezes os bailarinos executam movimentos similares, mesmo que posicionados espacialmente como indiv\u00edduos mais que em pares ou grupos. O \u00edmpeto do movimento parece ser coletivo, mais que individual, como se “programado” de fora, por processos naturais ou computadorizados. Tobi Tobias nota que: “a coisa toda [CRWDSPCR<\/em>] \u2013 inegavelmente encantadora, inexplicavelmente agitador – parece arbitr\u00e1rio e inevit\u00e1vel ao mesmo tempo” (1994: 66). Como Roslyn Sulcas comenta em Loosestrife: “como sempre, a apar\u00eancia de improvisa\u00e7\u00e3o coexiste com um fresco sentido de rigor; os agrupamentos e as dispers\u00f5es breves parecem impensadas mas necess\u00e1rias” (1992: 94). Ao mesmo tempo, o que pode parecer ser os movimentos de um grupo un\u00edssono s\u00e3o muito freq\u00fcentemente diferentes\/deferentes dentro das varia\u00e7\u00f5es nos termos de “s\/pacing”. Este aspecto de CRWDSPCR<\/em> foi garimpado precisamente por um cr\u00edtico do North Carolina Beacon aparentemente estranho ao estilo e objetivos de Cunningham, que comentou em 1993 que o “talvez MC poderia coreografar uma pe\u00e7a onde fala da individualidade ao mesmo tempo em que se certifica de que seus bailarinos se comportem como uma companhia, em vez de indiv\u00edduos… raramente, e provavelmente por acidente, os bailarinos est\u00e3o em sincronia. Nos outros 99% do tempo, um bailarino est\u00e1 um pouco fora do tempo, atuando fora dele e arruinando o efeito ” (Gay, 1993).<\/p>\n

As intera\u00e7\u00f5es vistas em CRWDSPCR<\/em> entre o individual e o coletivo, o aparentemente inevit\u00e1vel e o aparentemente arbitr\u00e1rio, s\u00e3o t\u00edpicas da coreografia de Cunningham, e t\u00eam paralelo pr\u00f3ximo em Beach Birds<\/em> e Pond Way<\/em>. Pond Way<\/em>, que pode ser visto como uma pe\u00e7a que acompanha Beach Birds<\/em> e outras pe\u00e7as sobre a natureza, e onde os bailarinos s\u00e3o freq\u00fcentemente comparados a insetos ou os besouros d’\u00e1gua, foi descrita como parecendo “a natureza funcionando segundo um computador” (Weinstein, 1998). Aqui n\u00f3s vemos pequenas diferen\u00e7as nos movimentos, que s\u00e3o freq\u00fcentemente sugerem agrupamentos, mas nenhuma configura\u00e7\u00e3o definitiva. Entretanto, h\u00e1 um forte sentido que as figuras est\u00e3o funcionando em um grupo coordenado, uniforme mesmo executando movimentos diferentes. Em Beach Birds<\/em>, as fragmenta\u00e7\u00f5es do corpo, os membros estranhamente angulares, e, \u00e0s vezes, uma rigidez quasi-rob\u00f3tica, mostram a influ\u00eancia do Life Forms<\/em>, que incentivou Cunningham a coreografar separadamente para as partes diferentes do corpo (bra\u00e7os, p\u00e9s, torso), desse modo fazendo ritmos menos org\u00e2nicos e aumentando sua complexidade (8). Ao mesmo tempo, Beach Birds<\/em> captura um leque famoso de movimentos aparentemente de p\u00e1ssaros, mas tamb\u00e9m humanos. Leslie Kendall fala de um “vocabul\u00e1rio inteiro de movimentos familiares, angulares: contrair-se, empurrar, hopping, p\u00e9s que agitam, asas que esticam, ciscar, imobilidade do grupo, invas\u00e3o de um territ\u00f3rio alheio por raz\u00f5es territoriais ou para acasalamento (Kendall, 1983). Coment\u00e1rios de Alastair Macaulay: “h\u00e1 diversas passagens em que os bailarinos podem ser rochas ou seixos; passagens que s\u00e3o t\u00e3o humanas como s\u00e3o de p\u00e1ssaro, tal como os duetos masculinos em que Fr\u00e9r\u00e9ric Gafner e Thomas Caley passeiam para l\u00e1 e para c\u00e1 como se competindo por territ\u00f3rio, e as passagens em que completamente o comportamento humano se funde ao comportamento de p\u00e1ssaro, como em um dueto breve de Gafner e Kimberley Bartosik ” (Macaulay, 1995: 263). Crisp Clement descreveu os bailarinos como o “tipo gaivotas e tipo n\u00e3o gaivotas” (2000: 18). Cunningham se refere ao significado de Beach Birds<\/em> como “p\u00e1ssaros, obviamente, ou animais ou o que quer que seja”, rochas (“da forma como voc\u00ea olha uma rocha e vai em volta dela, e ela parece diferente a cada vez, como se estivesse viva”), e, em uma nota tipicamente lac\u00f4nica, ele completou: “usei a id\u00e9ia de um p\u00e1ssaro, e ent\u00e3o j\u00e1 que os bailarinos s\u00e3o tamb\u00e9m seres humanos, pensei que eu podia tamb\u00e9m incluir isso” (Vaughan, 1997: 258).<\/p>\n

A desestabiliza\u00e7\u00e3o da categoria do humano pode ser refor\u00e7ada por elementos do d\u00e9cor e do som. Jack Anderson comenta em Beach Birds<\/em> que o “a impress\u00e3o de vibrar como ave est\u00e1 refor\u00e7ada n\u00e3o somente por passagens de agita\u00e7\u00e3o, mas tamb\u00e9m pelo fato que os bra\u00e7os e os ombros dos trajes projetados por Marsha Skinner s\u00e3o pretos, e o resto das roupas \u00e9 branco. Os bra\u00e7os transformam-se conseq\u00fcentemente numa apar\u00eancia de asas” (Anderson, 1994). Parecem alongados porque as m\u00e3os s\u00e3o enluvadas de preto. Al\u00e9m disso, os trajes t\u00eam um efeito direto em como os movimentos s\u00e3o percebidos. “Os trajes e os movimentos surpreendente impares do bra\u00e7o que Cunningham inventou conspiram para fazer a metade superior dos bailarinos parecerem separadas das de baixo” (Goldner, 1992). Em CRWDSPCR<\/em>, os trajes segmentam o corpo, a partir do programa de computador LifeForms<\/em>, em quatorze se\u00e7\u00f5es, verticalmente e horizontalmente (9). David Vaughan afirma que “Em Beach Birds<\/em> as luzes mudam no ciclorama branco de acordo com uma planta de ilumina\u00e7\u00e3o acaso-planejada” (1995: 29). Interessante, entretanto, que a luz pode evocar efeitos naturalistas: “Marsha Skinner, uma pintora de Taos, Novo M\u00e9xico, opta pela luz azul dominante no fundo, tingida \u00e0s vezes com uma cor-de-rosa de anoitecer. A amplid\u00e3o de um oceano \u00e9 sugerida sempre” (Kisselgoff, 1992). Indica tamb\u00e9m a progress\u00e3o estruturada: “Em Beach Birds<\/em>“, Marsha Skinner mostra os bailarinos em silhueta primeiro de encontro a um c\u00e9u profundo-azul; a luz do alvorecer levanta-se lentamente; finalmente, dan\u00e7am de encontro a um laranja morno” (Macaulay, 1992: 93). No filme Beach Birds for C\u00e2mera<\/em>, 1991 (que come\u00e7a em preto e branco e mais tarde ganha cor), o diretor Eliot Caplan, respondeu aos elementos da vers\u00e3o de palco: “porque os trajes eram pretos e brancos, eu quis que o filme tamb\u00e9m fosse… Eu fui inspirado por Merce, que disse que a pe\u00e7a era como uma paisagem” (Caplan, 1992). A m\u00fasica de Cage – FOUR3<\/em> – foi descrita como “uma paisagem sonora – o som macio das conchas derramadas de uma vasilha e a batida solit\u00e1ria de um baixo” (Valis Monte, 1992: 57). Ao mesmo tempo, Janice Berman comenta que as lamenta\u00e7\u00f5es eletr\u00f4nicas ocasionais “nos lembram que esta n\u00e3o se sup\u00f5e uma replica da natureza ou de qualquer coisa exceto o que \u00e9” (Berman, 1992).<\/p>\n

Tamb\u00e9m em Pond Way<\/em> a luz sugere efeitos tanto naturalistas quanto artificiais: “a mudan\u00e7a de morno ao vermelho lateral, projetadas por David Covey. . . sugerem sutilmente a passagem de um dia… os padr\u00f5es s\u00e3o muito como os c\u00edrculos pretos grandes e pequenos que d\u00e3o forma \u00e0 id\u00e9ia de uma imagem na lona branca atr\u00e1s dos bailarinos” (Dunning, 1998). Para esta coreografia, Cunningham pediu a Roy Lichtenstein para fazer um ciclorama no estilo das pinturas de sua exposi\u00e7\u00e3o recente de paisagens do “no estilo chin\u00eas” (influenciado por monotipos da paisagem de Edgar Degas). Lichtenstein morreu antes de executar este pedido, mas sua vi\u00fava permitiu que Cunningham selecionasse uma pintura para ser usado para a coreografia (Vaughan, 1998: 21). Como Tresca Weinstein indica, este fundo (Landscape com barco) e as formas incomuns criadas pelos trajes, que podem fazer os corpos dos bailarinos “sugestivas formas de inseto”, criam tens\u00f5es e intera\u00e7\u00f5es interessantes entre elementos naturais e padr\u00f5es computadorizados. “O jogo entre mec\u00e2nicos e natureza \u00e9 refletido nos trajes e no d\u00e9cor para a pe\u00e7a. Uma paisagem pontilhada de Roy Lichtenstein enfatiza o sentido dos dados que est\u00e3o sendo processados infinitamente, enquanto os trajes drapejados de Suzanne Gallo sugerem asas ou membros extras” (Weinstein, 1998).<\/p>\n

Em BIPED<\/em> (1999), o uso de Cunningham da capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento, na colabora\u00e7\u00e3o com Shelley Eshkar e Paul Kaiser, desloca os limites do “humano” numa das mais radicais formas at\u00e9 hoje. Aqui, o pr\u00f3prio movimento humano gera, mediado pela tecnologia digital e input criativo dos indiv\u00edduos, “outros” corpos virtuais. Os bailarinos vivos no palco s\u00e3o vistos junto com imagens abstratas desenhadas \u00e0 m\u00e3o por Eshkar, e animadas pelos dados da capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento fornecidos pelos bailarinos reais, projetados na frente do palco em um grande tel\u00e3o transparente (10). A cortina sobe num espa\u00e7o amb\u00edguo que est\u00e1 ao mesmo tempo autocontido e aberto ao p\u00fablico. N\u00f3s vemos as barras verticais da luz alinhadas assimetricamente ao longo da parede traseira do palco, com as barras similares projetadas no tel\u00e3o dianteiro, as barras mais verticais no lado, e os quadrados de luz que se movem atrav\u00e9s do assoalho. As linhas projetam-se no tel\u00e3o antes transparente criam um arco-\u00edris como efeito de visibilidade e intangibilidade.<\/p>\n

\u00c9 neste espa\u00e7o, misteriosamente aparte e aberto \u00e0 plat\u00e9ia, que os bailarinos – inicialmente uma s\u00e9rie dos solistas – fazem suas entradas, desgastando, os leotards assimetricamente projetados por Suzanne Gallo. No in\u00edcio, a proje\u00e7\u00e3o no tel\u00e3o \u00e9 est\u00e1tica, mas ent\u00e3o, em um vislumbre do que est\u00e1 por vir, uma linha vertical azul come\u00e7a inesperadamente a deslizar longitudinalmente da direita para esquerda. Mais tarde, ainda mais inesperadamente, os bailarinos no palco recebem figuras muito grandes, desenhadas como esbo\u00e7os, dan\u00e7ando da luz projetada no tel\u00e3o acima e na frente dos bailarinos vivos. O status destas figuras \u00e9 amb\u00edguo. A combina\u00e7\u00e3o das linhas gestuais do desenho de Shelley Eshkar e dos movimentos r\u00edtmicos derivados do movimento capturado de bailarinos reais evocam uma forma de dan\u00e7a que desafia as distin\u00e7\u00f5es entre “embodied” e o “disembodied”, do ser humano e do abstrato. O tamanho grande das figuras e de sua posi\u00e7\u00e3o acima dos bailarinos, que n\u00e3o interagem diretamente com eles, pode tamb\u00e9m sugerir uma presen\u00e7a supranatural. Eles moldam reflexos nas linhas verticais ao longo da parte traseira do palco, enfatizando a natureza refrat\u00e1ria do espa\u00e7o. Sua presen\u00e7a de esbo\u00e7o nunca \u00e9 ef\u00eamera: aparecem e desaparecem misteriosamente em intervalos durante toda a coreografia. Shelley Eshkar disse que: “n\u00f3s a concebemos [a proje\u00e7\u00e3o das linhas] como uma floresta de p\u00f3los, e em algum ponto nesta floresta tridimensional de p\u00f3los uma figura poderia emergir, mas amarrado a uma forma bidimensional, como se sa\u00eddo de lugar nenhum” (Summerdance). Al\u00e9m disso, este des\/aparecimento tem paralelo nos bailarinos vivos, que v\u00eam \u00e0s vezes no palco da parte traseira, nas palavras de Cunningham, como “algo que sai do espa\u00e7o, da n\u00e9voa: a forma n\u00e3o \u00e9 discern\u00edvel at\u00e9 que aparece”, e quando saem pela parte traseira, parecem “desaparecem no ar” (11). Cunningham especifica que este efeito foi de fato trazido “pelo que aconteceu com a tecnologia”, acrescentando: “voc\u00ea tem que manter seus olhos abertos” (12).<\/p>\n

Eshkar explicara tamb\u00e9m que as linhas na parte traseira vieram em coopera\u00e7\u00e3o com Aaron Copp, iluminador. Melhor que a justaposi\u00e7\u00e3o coincidente de meios diferentes, como \u00e9 usual nas dan\u00e7as de Cunningham, aspectos da justaposi\u00e7\u00e3o pareceriam aqui orquestrados mais deliberadamente. Kaiser e Eshkar v\u00eaem-se como tendo “fornecido uma s\u00e9rie das lentes – cada lente altera como n\u00f3s vemos a dan\u00e7a” (Focus Day<\/em>). Para Kaiser, “a coreografia \u00e9 bem sucedida se sua percep\u00e7\u00e3o da dan\u00e7a estiver afetada pelas proje\u00e7\u00f5es, mesmo quando n\u00e3o est\u00e3o realmente na tela” (Summerdance). A ordem em que o movimento gerado em computador \u00e9 projetado foi decidido por opera\u00e7\u00f5es do acaso. Cunningham recebeu 25 arquivos de computador, e usou o acaso para organiz\u00e1-los. Entretanto, ao observado as figuras projetadas nas performances de BIPED em Berkeley, Eshkar e Kaiser notaram que elas parecem se mover muito mais rapidamente no tel\u00e3o do que na tela do computador, e decidiram fazer mudan\u00e7as em sua cor, escala e velocidade. “Retardar as figuras maiores deu-lhes uma massa maior” (Focus Day<\/em>). Al\u00e9m disso, as intera\u00e7\u00f5es entre bailarinos vivos e imagens projetadas n\u00e3o s\u00e3o limitadas \u00e0s figuras virtuais. \u00c0 primeira vista, achei que o mais impressionante eram as imagens projetadas, mas nas sess\u00f5es subseq\u00fcentes fui atingido cada vez mais fortemente por outros aspectos das proje\u00e7\u00f5es computadorizadas, notavelmente os ritmos assim\u00e9tricos das barras verticais de luz, movendo-se em velocidades desiguais atrav\u00e9s do tel\u00e3o, se combinando e se separando. As linhas horizontais fazem tamb\u00e9m uma apari\u00e7\u00e3o, movendo-se outra vez assim\u00e9tricas, em cores e em larguras diferentes. Uma figura dan\u00e7ante projetada \u00e9 composta de linhas retas que se dispersam e recolhem enquanto pulam. Em um n\u00edvel, isto \u00e9 puramente abstrato, mas em um outro n\u00edvel, como Kaiser indicou, “pode-se ainda sentir a massa e o peso originais” (New Bodies<\/em>). Algumas imagens s\u00e3o compostas de discos que se movem em padr\u00f5es que podem evocar insetos, especialmente aranhas, mas podem tamb\u00e9m se relacionar \u00e0s imagens originais da capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento vistas em um monitor, que Cunningham compara a “uma \u00e1rvore de natal iluminada se movendo” (Focus Day<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Enquanto os bailarinos s\u00e3o freq\u00fcentemente vistos sem nenhuma imagem projetadas no tel\u00e3o, as imagens projetadas s\u00e3o percebidas sempre no contraste com os ritmos complexos dos bailarinos. Ao contr\u00e1rio de muitas pe\u00e7as de Cunningham, n\u00e3o h\u00e1 nenhum momento do parada aqui – os bailarinos est\u00e3o em movimento constante, cuja velocidade contrasta \u00e0s vezes com movimentos mais lentos no tel\u00e3o. Especialmente perto do come\u00e7o, \u00e9 vis\u00edvel que quando h\u00e1 numerosos bailarinos no palco eles freq\u00fcentemente executam movimentos ritmicamente complexos em que, embora gestos e seq\u00fc\u00eancias similares sejam usados, os movimentos de cada bailarino s\u00e3o individuais e espec\u00edficos e seguem seu pr\u00f3prio sincronismo. H\u00e1 tamb\u00e9m muitos duetos e algum trabalho un\u00edssono, com \u00eanfase crescente na repeti\u00e7\u00e3o de determinados gestos, notavelmente um bra\u00e7o direito levantado. No fim da dan\u00e7a, o movimento assume qualidades cada vez mais ritual\u00edsticas (notavelmente o uso dos bra\u00e7os levantados), com configura\u00e7\u00f5es sugerindo figuras eg\u00edpcias. Esta qualidade \u00e9 acentuada por uma seq\u00fc\u00eancia de “vestimenta” (id\u00e9ia de Suzanne Gallo), onde os bailarinos homens v\u00eam ao palco carrega uma camisa com que vestem as bailarinas, e pelo cerimonial em que uma bailarina \u00e9 levantada (um motif<\/em> recorrente em Cunningham) na posi\u00e7\u00e3o horizontal por diversos bailarinos. (o contraste vertical-horizontal pode ser visto aqui para espelhar o relacionamento entre o bailarino ereto e o palco, mas tamb\u00e9m aquele entre as linhas verticais e horizontais.) N\u00f3s tamb\u00e9m a vemos (Cheryl Therrien) dan\u00e7ar s\u00f3, em um ponto que se move lentamente, com ambos os bra\u00e7os levantados e dobrados nos cotovelos em um gesto hier\u00e1tico. Na seq\u00fc\u00eancia final, \u00e9 carregada para fora do palco, deixando tr\u00eas casais dan\u00e7ando. Nos \u00faltimos momentos, diversos bailarinos est\u00e3o ainda se movendo, dando forma a formas quasi-esculturais complexas, enquanto a cortina desce. Na uma ocasi\u00e3o onde eu estava pr\u00f3xima o bastante ver suas express\u00f5es, no fim da pe\u00e7a, os bailarinos (muito incomum em Cunningham) estavam sorrindo, o que real\u00e7ou o sentido que o car\u00e1ter cerimonial do movimento tinha uma qualidade celebrat\u00f3ria.<\/p>\n

Como nas dan\u00e7as j\u00e1 aqui discutidas, muitos dos coment\u00e1rios mais entusi\u00e1sticos sobre BIPED<\/em> (que foi extremamente bom recebido) enfatizam o que \u00e9 visto enquanto a fus\u00e3o bem sucedida da dan\u00e7a e da tecnologia nas formas que permitem o triunfo do humano sobre a tecnologia. “A coreografia \u00e9 um come\u00e7o bem-vindo para Cunningham, que \u00e9 criticado \u00e0s vezes por transformar bailarinos em t\u00e9cnicos. Em BIPED<\/em>, os bailarinos s\u00e3o suntuosamente humanos, alongando seus membros \u00e0 extens\u00e3o, movendo-se fluidicamente a cada frase, e se relacionando no palco” (Scarry, 1999b). Um outro cr\u00edtico observa que: o triunfo de Cunningham “aqui est\u00e1 em n\u00e3o permitir que a tecnologia espectral substitua a kin\u00e9tica viva” (Hutera, 2000). Entretanto, um dos aspectos mais impressionantes da pe\u00e7a \u00e9 a intera\u00e7\u00e3o entre o “real” e o “virtual”. Interessante, de acordo com Paul Kaiser, “Cunningham n\u00e3o se preocupou com a tecnologia encobrindo os bailarinos. Estava mais interessado na colis\u00e3o entre os dois mundos” (Scarry, 1999a). \u00c9 precisamente porque Cunningham (na forma de Derrida) mant\u00e9m e diminui diferen\u00e7as (aqui, entre o real e o virtual) pela constante metamorfose entre categorias, que seu trabalho cria os deslocamentos e as tens\u00f5es emocionantes que n\u00e3o podem ser resolvidos em interpreta\u00e7\u00f5es \u00fanicas. H\u00e1, al\u00e9m disso, uma dimens\u00e3o experimental da rela\u00e7\u00e3o com a “alteridade” que n\u00e3o \u00e9 explorada nas discuss\u00f5es de Derrida sobre o “espa\u00e7amento”. Em BIPED<\/em>, isto envolve interpenetra\u00e7\u00e3o entre real e espa\u00e7os virtuais, onde, com empatia sinest\u00e9sica tanto com o virtual quanto com os bailarinos vivos, os espectadores podem experimentar uma destrui\u00e7\u00e3o dos limites entre o ser humano e as “outras” corporalidades.<\/p>\n

Kaiser especificou que ele e Eshkar tinham evitado deliberadamente fazer os bailarinos virtuais fazerem coisas que o corpo humano n\u00e3o poderia fazer, e, como dito anteriormente, que “ainda se pode sentir a massa e o peso originais” (New Bodies<\/em>). Ao mesmo tempo, as figuras s\u00e3o extra\u00eddas como esbo\u00e7o, enfatizando sua virtualidade. Cunningham descreveu esta como o “visualmente maravilhosamente interessante – o esqueleto do movimento mas n\u00e3o o recheio” (New Bodies<\/em>). O que os bailarinos virtuais conservam do “embodiment” humano est\u00e1 encapsulado nas qualidades do movimento, que s\u00e3o verdadeiras \u00e0 din\u00e2mica do corpo humano. A capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento conserva as mesmas idiossincrasias dos padr\u00f5es de movimento individuais. Embora as figuras do bailarino possam conotar formas de vida do al\u00e9m da humana, n\u00e3o s\u00e3o simplesmente “disembodied”, mas “embodied” de forma diferente, sendo verdadeiras, segundo Kaiser, n\u00e3o \u00e0 apar\u00eancia mas ao movimento (New Bodies<\/em>). Al\u00e9m disso, os espectadores de BIPED<\/em> podem experimentar deslocamentos no tempo e no espa\u00e7o, com a irregularidade dos ritmos dos bailarinos, as proje\u00e7\u00f5es computadorizadas e as intera\u00e7\u00f5es entre eles, e a “desmaterializa\u00e7\u00e3o” do espa\u00e7o do palco com o uso dos dispositivos descritos acima. Eshkar descreveu as entradas e sa\u00eddas dos bailarinos na parte traseira como uma l\u00f3gica “de aparecer e de desaparecer de maneira que n\u00e3o tivesse que ver com o fisicalidade do palco real” (Focus Day<\/em>). De acordo com um cr\u00edtico, “os bailarinos parecem existir em um espa\u00e7o pulsando em fluxo constante” (Felciano, 1999: 72).<\/p>\n

Na conclus\u00e3o, ent\u00e3o, o trabalho de Cunningham dos anos 90 e depois (que segue a partir de e desenvolve as caracter\u00edsticas chaves de seu trabalho anterior) explora a capacidade do espectador para a empatia sinest\u00e9sica com “outras”, maneiras inesperadas de se mover e com corpos virtuais, em que os mundos da natureza e de TI t\u00eam um papel-chave, se deslocando e abrindo as identidades b\u00edpedes \u00e0s possibilidades nunca vistas.<\/p>\n

Notas<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Por exemplo, as discuss\u00f5es recentes Zona de Dan\u00e7a e Tecnologia<\/a>. Para as finalidades desta discuss\u00e3o, o adjetivo “humano” se refere aos atributos psicol\u00f3gicos e \u00e0s caracter\u00edsticas f\u00edsicas atribu\u00eddas aos seres humanos, tais como a capacidade sentir e emo\u00e7\u00f5es expressas, e mover-se de acordo com os par\u00e2metros definidos pelo corpo humano. A dimens\u00e3o anterior, psicol\u00f3gica, \u00e9 de particular import\u00e2ncia aos proponentes valores humanistas.<\/p>\n

2. Para ir fundo nisto, veja http:\/\/www.riverbed.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Jack Anderson comentou que o pior do trabalho de Cunningham \u00e9 a falta de envolvimento. “Seus passos, embora arranjados pelo m\u00e9todo do acaso, s\u00e3o estudiosamente de bom-gosto, mesmo sem sangue” (1993: 786). Cathryn Harding, escrevendo no Isthmus, comenta “qu\u00e3o sem paix\u00e3o e desconcertante um mundo digital pode ser” (1994). .<\/p>\n

4. Veja a discuss\u00e3o da \u2018diff\u00e9rance\u2019 em Derrida, abaixo. A ‘diff\u00e9rance’ trabalha para subverter a s\u00edntese na forma da sublation ou do hegeliano ‘Aufhebung ‘. Para um di\u00e1logo l\u00facido neste t\u00f3pico, veja a entrevista de Derrida com Jean-Louis Houdebine e Guy Scarpetta em Derrida 1972\/1981. Veja tamb\u00e9m Broadhurst 1999: 49.<\/p>\n

5. \u2018MC Dance Company at City Center\u2019, Voice, 22 mar\u00e7o 1994. CDF. Nenhum detalhe adicional dispon\u00edvel.<\/p>\n

6. Citado por David Vaughan, em Merce Cunningham, 50 anos (New York: Aperture 1997): 29. Veja tamb\u00e9m p.32.<\/p>\n

7. ver abaixo a refer\u00eancia ao v\u00eddeo de CRWDSPCR.<\/p>\n

8. Isto pode tamb\u00e9m ser visto como uma extens\u00e3o do princ\u00edpio do acaso por justaposi\u00e7\u00e3o de eventos desconexos.<\/p>\n

9. Veja David Vaughan, Merce Cunningham, 268, para mais detalhes.<\/p>\n

10. BIPED foi precedido em 1997-8 por uma instala\u00e7\u00e3o coreogr\u00e1fico-virtual usando a capta\u00e7\u00e3o do movimento, produzida por Cunningham, Eshkar e Kaiser, intitulada Hand Drawn Spaces.<\/p>\n

11. Merce Cunningham entrevistado por Alastair Macaulay, \u2018Merce Cunningham Focus Day\u2019, 14 outubro 2000, Barbican Center, Londres.
\n12. Falando em \u2018New Bodies, New Realities: Live Chat Room\u2019, 15 outubro, Instituto de Arte Contempor\u00e2nea, Londres.<\/p>\n

Refer\u00eancias<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note: \u2018CDF\u2019 denotes materials held in the archives of the Cunningham Dance Foundation (55 Bethune St, New York, NY 10014) for which full bibliographical references are not available.<\/p>\n

Acocella, Joan (1993), \u2018Merce\u2019s Microchippendales\u2019, Daily News<\/em>, 11 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Acocella, Joan (1999), \u2018The Gambler: Merce Cunningham, at eighty, continues to roll the dice\u2019, The New Yorker<\/em>, 9 August, 84-87.<\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack (1993), \u2018New York Newsletters: Cunningham and Feld\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LXXXII (992), 786-7.<\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack (1994), \u2018Hints of Sea and Sky Amid Stillness\u2019, The New York Times<\/em>, Tuesday, March 15. CDF.<\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack and George Dorris (1994), \u2018NewYork Newsletter: Carousel in New York\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LXXXIV (1004: May), 795-797.<\/p>\n

Beach Birds 1991, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Four\u2019) by John Cage, costumes and lighting by Marsha Skinner.<\/p>\n

Beach Birds for camera (film version) 1991, choreography Merce Cunningham, directed by Elliot Caplan, Design by Elliot Caplan, Tim Nelson, Matthew Williams, Marsha Skinner Berman, Janice (1992), \u2018Mastering the Acts of Nature\u2019, New York Newsday, 19 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Berman, Janice (1994), \u2018Cunningham Company Boasts on Vital “Extra”\u2019, New York Newsday<\/em>, 11 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

BIPED<\/em> 1999, choreography Merce Cunningham, music by Gavin Bryars, computer-enhanced decor by Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar, costumes by Suzanne Gallo.<\/p>\n

Broadhurst, Susan (1999), Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory<\/em>. London: Cassell.<\/p>\n

Caplan, Eliot (1992), programme for Beach Birds for Camera and Torse<\/em>, Sunday 15 November, Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que de la Danse and Op\u00e9ra de Paris Garnier, translation mine.<\/p>\n

Crisp, Clement (2000), \u2018Pierrot\u2019s journey is still marvellous\u2019, Financial Times<\/em>, Thursday 8 June, 18.<\/p>\n

CRWDSPCR<\/em> 1993, choreography Merce Cunningham, Music (\u2018blues 99\u2019) by John King, scenery and costumes by Mark Lancaster.<\/p>\n

Cunningham, Merce (1997) \u2018The Impermanent Art\u2019, pp.86-7 in David Vaughan, Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years<\/em>. New York: Aperture.<\/p>\n

D\u00e9cor<\/em>, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Landscape with Boat\u2019) by Roy Lichtenstein, Costumes Suzanne.<\/p>\n

Derrida, Jacques (1972), Positions<\/em>. Paris: Minuit. (Positions, transl. Alan Bass, 1981. London: Athlone Press).<\/p>\n

Dunning, Jennifer (1998), \u2018By an Evolving Cunningham, Lyrical yet Larger Movement\u2019, The New York Times<\/em>, Monday 3 August. CDF.<\/p>\n

Enter 1992<\/em>, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Neural Network Plus\u2019) by David Tudor, scenery and costumes by Marsha Skinner, backdrop and costume photography from a video still by.<\/p>\n

Elliot Caplan, \u2018Rideau de sc\u2013 ne\u2019 by John Cage.<\/p>\n

Felciano, Rita (1999), \u2018Dance a little dream of Merce\u2019, Dance Magazine<\/em>, July 1999, 72.<\/p>\n

Gasch\u00e9, Rodolphe (1986), The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection<\/em>. London: Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n

Gay, Nathan J (1993), \u2018Cunningham delights some, irritates others\u2019, North Carolina Beacon<\/em>, 22 July. CDF.<\/p>\n

Goldner, Nancy (1992), \u2018The Cunningham spirit in leaps and bounds\u2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, Thursday March 19. CDF.<\/p>\n

Goldner, Nancy (1994), \u2018Merce Cunningham\u2019s new work, “Crwdspcr”\u2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, Thursday 12 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Harding, Cathryn (1994), \u2018Mechanical Genius\u2019, Isthmus<\/em>, 4 March. (CDF)<\/p>\n

Hutchinson, Ann (1964), \u2018The Merce Cunningham Company\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LIV (648: September), 620-1 and 662.<\/p>\n

Hutera, Donald (2000), \u2018Cunningham dance show is high-tech triumph\u2019, Star Tribune<\/em>, Minneapolis, 7 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Johnson, Jill (1968), \u2018My Memory about certain things\u2019, Dance Perspectives (34), 21.<\/p>\n

Jordan, Stephanie (1999), pp. 61-69 in \u2018Freedom from the Music: Cunningham, Cage and Collaborations\u2019, in Germano Celant (ed) Merce Cunningham. Milan: Charta, 1999.<\/p>\n

Jowitt, Deborah (1993), \u2018Like Lava\u2019, Village Voice<\/em>, 23 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Kendall, Leslie (1983), \u2018Cunningham dancers focus on pure movement at the Pillow\u2019, The Daily Gazette<\/em>, 8 July, CDF.<\/p>\n

Kisselgoff, Anna (1992), \u2018Surreal Beach Life Amid the Silences of Unreality\u2019, New York Times<\/em>, Thursday 19 March. (CDF)<\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1992), \u2018Happy Hooligan\u2019, The New Yorker<\/em>, 27 April, 90-93.<\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1995), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LXXXVI (1023: December), 263.<\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1999), \u2018Nice footwork from the master of reinvention\u2019, Financial Times<\/em> (NY) 5 May, 13.<\/p>\n

Mazo, Joseph H. (1994), \u2018In Step with the Software\u2019, The Record<\/em>, Friday 14 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

\u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center\u2019 (1994), Voice, 22 March. CDF.<\/p>\n

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), Le Visible et l\u2019invisible<\/em>. Paris: Gallimard.<\/p>\n

Robertson, Allen (1994), \u2018Merce, Mark and Miami\u2019, Dance Now<\/em>, 3 (3), Autumn, 70-73.<\/p>\n

Pond Way<\/em> 1998, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018New Ikebukuro\u2019) by Brian Eno.<\/p>\n

Scarry, Siobhan (1999a), \u2018Devising the Digital Dance\u2019, in Wired News<\/a>, 20 April.<\/p>\n

Scarry, Siobhan (1999b), \u2018In Step with Digital Dance\u2019, Wired News<\/a>, 26 April.<\/p>\n

Sulcas, Roslyn (1991), \u2018Merce Cunningham, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville, Paris\u2019, Dance and Dancers<\/em> (November), 26-27.<\/p>\n

Sulcas, Roslyn (1992), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville, Paris\u2019, September 10-21, 1991\u2019, Dance Magazine<\/em> (January), 94-6.<\/p>\n

Tobias, Tobi (1993), \u2018From Here to Eternity\u2019, New York Magazine<\/em>, 29 March 1993, 93.<\/p>\n

Tobias, Tobi (1994), \u2018Age and Innocence\u2019, New York Magazine<\/em>, 4 April, 66.<\/p>\n

Valis Hill, Constance (1992), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center Theater, Premiere of “Beach Birds”\u2019, Attitude 8<\/em> (3), Spring\/Summer, 57.<\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1995), \u2018Merce Cunningham returns to London\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LXXXVI (1021: October), 29-31.<\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1997), Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years<\/em>. New York: Aperture.<\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1998), \u2018Merce Cunningham at the Barbican\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/em>, LXXVIII (1055: October), 19 and 21.<\/p>\n

Vranish, Jane (1994), \u2018Cunningham Daring, but a bit more accessible\u2019, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em>, Monday 26 September.<\/p>\n

Weinstein, Tresca (1998), \u2018Cunningham\u2019s work is full of beauty\u2019, Times Union<\/em>, Albany, NY, Thursday 30 July. CDF.<\/p>\n

Live Events<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Merce Cunningham Focus Day\u2019, 14 October 2000, Barbican Centre, London.<\/p>\n

\u2018New Bodies, New Realities: Live Chat Room\u2019, 15 October, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.<\/p>\n

Websites<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duounreal.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedstills.htm<\/a> – BIPED STILLS<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedphotos.htm<\/a> – BIPED PHOTOS<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedqt.htm<\/a> – BIPED CLIPS<\/p>\n

Video \/ TV<\/strong><\/p>\n

CRWDSPCR<\/em>. (1996). 55 minutes, color. Available in film and video. Choreography by Merce Cunningham. Directed by Elliot Caplan. Music by John King (“blues 99”). Produced by the Cunningham Dance Foundation, Inc.<\/p>\n

SUMMERDANCE, \u2018MERCE CUNNINGHAM\u2019<\/em>. (2000). Directed by Charles Atlas. Executive director, Sheldon Schwartz. BBC 2, 26 August.<\/span>“A man is a two-legged creature \u2013 more basically and more intimately than he is anything else”<\/b> (Cunningham, 1997:86). <\/p>\n

The impact of electronic technologies on the self-images of embodied human agents has produced both anxiety and fascination concerning the instability of the boundaries of the “human”. A front page article in the Guardian<\/i>\u2019s “Saturday Review” section recently featured extracts from Ray Kurzweil\u2019s book, The Age of Spiritual Machines<\/i>, which describes a cyborg future, where, by 2029, “the majority of communication does not involve a human”, and by 2049, the “ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology . . . provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities” (1999: 1-2). In the field of performance, explorations of interactions between “live” performers and technology are currently stimulating debates about the relative importance of technological innovations and the human\/emotional dimension of performance, which is sometimes seen as in danger of being eclipsed.(1) <\/p>\n

In describing Cunningham dances, where, since the early 1990\u2019s, computer technology has been employed as a choreographical tool, critics often use images drawn both from IT and from the natural world. Cunningham\u2019s titles also point towards these sources, for example Beach Birds<\/i> (1991), Enter<\/i> (1992), CRWDSPCR<\/i>, 1993 (named after 2 programme variants, “Crowd Spacer” and “Crowds Pacer”), Pond Way<\/i> (1998), and BIPED<\/i> (1999), whose title is taken from one of the modules of Character Studio, the figure animation software created by Michael Girard and Susan Amkraut of Unreal Pictures.(2) Cunningham is currently enjoying a critical reception which at times borders on adulation. He celebrated his 80th birthday last year, but is regarded by a critical mass of choreographers, young and old, as well as by critics, as being at the cutting edge of new developments in dance. However, his early work in the 1940\u2019s and 50\u2019s, through to the 1960\u2019s, frequently provoked strong opposition, and his recent work has sparked off occasional criticism reminiscent of the early days, particularly regarding its perceived lack of human emotion which can alienate some spectators. For instance, Tresca Weinstein commented in 1998: “What\u2019s most chilling about Cunningham is the absence of emotion. His dancers move like well-assembled collections of body parts, powered by the force of nature or mechanics but without will or desire of their own”.(3) <\/p>\n

From the very start, Cunningham set out, through movement, to discover new parameters of the “human”. This involved disrupting audience expectations of expressiveness and narrative content and structure, and dislocating familiar relations of the human body in movement to time and space. These assaults were frequently seen by contemporaries as attacks on the “human” itself, particularly by contrast with the doyenne of modern dance, Martha Graham. Writing in 1968 of reactions to Cunningham in 1953, Jill Johnson said that “One of the key words was HUMAN. There was much discussion about what it meant to be human… they did feel, I guess, that Merce threatened the concept they had of what it meant to be human” (1968: 21). In 1964, a critic wrote that “Graham is concerned mainly with human beings, with human relationships, the cause and effect of human behaviour. But… there appears not to be much inner content to [Cunningham\u2019s works]; they seem superficial” (Hutchinson, 1964: 621). <\/p>\n

Cunningham enjoyed a personal and artistic partnership with John Cage from 1942 till the latter\u2019s death in 1992, and the non-metrical structure of Cage\u2019s music may have been an important factor in enabling Cunningham\u2019s choreography to break away from dramatic structures of conflict and resolution, cause and effect, climax and anti-climax. Cunningham sees the famous “chance” principle, inspired by the “I Ching”, and espoused by him and Cage, as having enabled him to transcend the limits of his individual motivations to discover new choreographical methods. His recent use of IT (as in the programme entitled “LifeForms”, since 1991, and motion capture, since 1997) is very much a continuum, as he has said himself, with his earlier chance methods, although the use of motion capture (seen in the dance entitled BIPED<\/i>, premiered in 1999), also raises new issues, which I shall discuss below. Moreover, the possibilities offered by television and its influence on our modes of perception are seen by Cunningham as central to his working methods. In 1977 he was quoted by Anna Kisselgoff as saying that: “One thing must not necessarily follow another. Or rather, anything can follow anything. We see it on television all the time. In the 20th century, this new continuity is part of the life we live” (Jordan, 1999: 62). He continues to emphasize the crucial importance for him of the influence of television. Wired News<\/i> reported recently that: “he told [Paul] Kaiser that he saw BIPED<\/i> as working with the idea of television channel-surfing. This motif was apparent in the demonstration. Movement phrases are combined and recombined, and scale and pacing are in constant flux. The scrim in front falls into slowly falling lines, in sharp contrast to the dancers\u2019 quick, irregular movements” (Scarry, 1999a). <\/p>\n

In 1952, Cunningham affirmed that “[the chance] method might lead one to suspect the result as being possibly geometric and “abstract”, unreal and non-human. On the contrary, it is… no more abstract than any human being is, and as for reality, it is just that, it is not abstracted from something else, but is the thing itself, and moreover allows each dancer to be just as human as he is” (1997: 87). The pithy dryness of this statement is typical of Cunningham\u2019s pronouncements about his own work, which promote a strongly Zen-like or phenomenological view of his dance, highlighting the value of presence, of what he calls “each thing-ness” (1997: 87). Cunningham also declared that: <\/p>\n

“I am no more philosophical than my legs, but from them I sense this fact: that they are suffused with energy that can be released in movement… that the shape the movement takes is beyond the fathoming of my mind\u2019s analysis but clear to my eyes and rich to my imagination. A man is a two-legged creature \u2013 more basically and more intimately than he is anything else. And his legs speak more than they “know”.”<\/i> (1997: 86). <\/p>\n

In line with this reasoning, I shall suggest that Cunningham\u2019s dances in fact philosophize in ways which point to consequences more radical than his intended anchoring in “the thing itself”. Allowing the dancer to be “just as human as he is” does not assume a stable category of the “human”. Cunningham\u2019s choreography in fact forces us to re-think relations, not only between space and time, but between intentionality and movement, the arbitrary and the purposeful, and even between what we conceive of as human and “other” ways of moving, notably involving interactions with animal and computerized forms of movement. The effect is to destabilize \u2013 literally \u2013 and displace \u2013 literally \u2013 our received ideas of the “human”. <\/p>\n

The markedly more positive reception of Cunningham\u2019s recent work can be ascribed partly to a widely felt need to find, as Cunningham put it, the “complexity, not the confusion”, in our daily lives (Jordon, 1999: 62), but also to a pressing sense of the need to resolve the relation between the human and the technological in ways which can allow us to see a future for the human as we know it. Hence the delight of the critic Joan Acocella, writing in the New Yorker<\/i> last year, having seen a Cunningham programme which included BIPED<\/i>: “In the program as a whole, with the company dancing so feelingly against a background of electronic music and computer imagery, we witnessed a larger truce [than that between ballet and modern dance]. C.P. Snow\u2019s “two cultures”, technology and humanity, the machine and the soul: friends for a night!” (1999: 84). Later in the review, she speculated that Cunningham may believe that there is a unity in the cosmos which we don\u2019t know about, and also that many of his fans think the same. “Cunningham\u2019s audience has always been extraordinarily fervent, and this may be in part because his work implies a faith that people can enter into and still sleep late on Sunday” (1999: 86). <\/p>\n

Comments by critics leave no doubt that a large part of the attraction of Cunningham\u2019s dance for contemporary audiences lies in its appeal to a kind of utopian imagination, rooted in the corporeal, in which the human intermingles with the natural (animal) and the technological. In fact, some critics even suggest that certain works by Cunningham transcend the human itself in a Zen-like, cosmic space, which has a meditative and reconciling effect. Beach Birds<\/i> “offer[s] a vision of heightened reality . . . its creatures on stage are super-real” (Kisselgoff, 1992). It is “a movement meditation on the sea from the shore side” (Valis Hill, 1992: 57): it evokes “a sense of a peaceful world remote from human concerns” (Sulcas, 1991: 27); “a palpitating serenity” (Vranish: 1994). Similar comments have been made about Enter<\/i>. “With Enter<\/i>, Cunningham shows us the joy of duly experiencing the evanescent moment, the significance, rather than the meaninglessness, of being a mere grain in the sands of time, and the appreciation of death as an entirely natural element in the life cycle . . You come away from an encounter with such work lighter, freer, less trapped in your self, more connected to a cosmos that may be unfathomable but is no longer forbidding or alien” (Tobias: 1993, 93). <\/p>\n

Many critics are reassured by what they see as Cunningham\u2019s privileging of the human over the technological, and their comments indicate a desire for a hierarchical synthesis, of the kind criticized by Derrida as a Hegelian “Aufhebung” (sublation), where the \u2018inferior\u2019 side of the opposing binary is subsumed into a greater whole.(4) “For all of this computerized invention, Enter<\/i> is a celebration not of technology but of the triumphant flexibility of the human mind and body to grow, change\u2019 (Robertson, 1994: 73). \u2018What both men [Cunningham and Tudor] seem to be saying [about Enter] is, “We didn\u2019t make this piece.” It\u2019s untouched by human hands. Its mother was a microchip. And, as usual, with Cunningham\u2019s work, the piece looks thrillingly human.” (Acocella: 1993). Intersubjectivity is seen as taking on utopian dimensions. “The dancers [in Enter<\/i>] strid[ing]on long, straight legs, take on the colour of heroes, members of some utopian society of the future” (Jowitt: 1993). In CRWDSPR<\/i> , “the 13 dancers look like a throng up there on the stage, and an idealized one at that. The dancers enjoy the companionship of others, yet define their own space. Individual and group actions happen simultaneously. The relationships between the dancers are in constant flux, yet there is never a sense of loss. Although the stage picture is buzzing with activity, every movement is clear, chaos without a mess” (Goldner: 1994). CRWDSPR<\/i> has been described as “Cunningham at his jolliest . . . It could have been rush hour on the New York subway. Yet it was much more fun, for this apparent chaos was both organized and cheerful” (Anderson and Dorris, 1994: 795). By contrast, others find the automated character of some of the movement alienating and dehumanizing. “CRWDSPR<\/i> . . . with its stiff, mannequin-like hands and robotic plastique, was almost oppressively anti-human. It\u2019s Us vs. the machines, I thought, and the machines are winning” (Harding 1994). <\/p>\n

However, rather than continuing to operate with binary oppositions, conflicts and\/or synthesis, such as that of “us” and “machines”, Cunningham\u2019s choreography can be said to displace<\/i> fixed categories. Many critical comments on Cunningham in fact focus on the “undecidability” of movements involving interactions between the “human” the “natural”, and the “automated”. The dancers in Enter<\/i> have been described as “not quite angels, but not quite human either. Something in between” (Berman, 1994). “Enter<\/i> . . . it\u2019s like some natural phenomenon \u2013 a volcano, an ocean \u2013 except that we know it\u2019s man-made . . . we might be watching the usually invisible processes of plant growth” (Jowitt, 1993). According to David Vaughan, Beach Birds<\/i> “evokes not only the movements of seabirds but also those of human beings, and even the placement of rocks on the seashore” (Vaughan, 1995: 29). CRWDSPCR<\/i> suggests both utopia and chaos, humanity and technology, in ways which undermine these oppositions. “There\u2019s something festive about CRWDSPCR<\/i> even though the dancers often look like windup toys running amok”(5) “[In CRWDSPCR<\/i>]… The dancers travel with neat, sharp little steps, like androids going about their business in some sleek city of the future… Everybody seems to know where he\u2019s going, and exactly how much time he needs to get there, and everybody is, one way or another, connected to everybody else” (Mazo, 1994). <\/p>\n

These processes of displacement can be described in Derridean terms as “spacing”, or “diff\u00e9rance”, in which intervals or differences are insinuated within the self-relation of an apparently self-identical entity. Derrida describes spacing in dynamic terms: it is “a movement, a displacement that indicates an irreducible alterity” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 200). It is both active and passive, since it is “not only the interval… but also spacing, the operation, or in any event, the movement<\/i> [my emphasis] of setting aside”. Spacing is not universal, in that its operation is different each time it takes place. At the same time, it is a necessary<\/i> possibility. “As that according to which any entity is what it is only by being divided by the Other to which it refers in order to constitute itself, spacing is also the presignifying opening of concealed and unconcealed meaning” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 202). In other words, the relation to an Other is not an incidental aspect of identity: it is a condition of possibility of any identity, which, in the Derridean phrase “always already” differs\/defers it from itself. On the one hand, the term “spacing” can refer to exteriority per se: it is \u2018the opening of the first exteriority in general, the enigmatic relationship of the living to its other, of an inside to an outside” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 199). On the other hand, the term itself indicates a particular relationship to spatio-temporal conditions, as affected by movement. The production of intervals which takes place in the activity of spacing marks at once “the insinuation of a space into the supposedly self-sufficient present”, but also the “becoming-time of space” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 198), its displacement or dislocation into time. Spacing is above all an activity, a process, a movement<\/i>, which means that it cannot be pinned down and reduced to any particular semantic category. This should not be confused with the notion of ambiguity or polyvalence: it is not that the meaning is vague, or that several things are meant at once, but rather that no conceptual meaning can account for the process<\/i> of spacing, which precedes and interferes with conceptual categories. <\/p>\n

Cunningham\u2019s choreography differs and defers temporal progression from itself by inviting perception in terms of temporally discrete moments, through techniques which are by now famous hallmarks of the Cunningham style, such as abrupt transitions and changes of tempo and direction which disrupt expectations both of choreographed and everyday human movement patterns. This may be thought of as focussing attention on the “present”, in accordance with Cunningham\u2019s own views. Joan Acocella comments that “because A is not flowing into B, we actually see A” (1999: 86). However, the structural dynamics which exceed and disrupt linear sequence and progression cannot themselves be subsumed into a chain of pure “presences” where time and space coincide, because simultaneous “spatial” moments are themselves disrupted, again through familiar Cunningham devices such as decentralized staging and multiple activities which defy unified perception. Choreographical “spacing” opens up both space and time to their “exterior”, rendering them incommensurate with themselves but also preventing them from being subsumed into each other. In Beach Birds, for instance, stillness constantly interacts with movement, both sequentially and simultaneously. Very tiny movements insinuate temporal “intervals” in space, and the almost constant presence of stillness infiltrates the movement, insinuating space into time. What is foregrounded here is neither time nor space per se, but the active displacement of these categories. Moreover, the category of the “human” is frequently itself opened out to comprise characteristics which may be thought of as its “exterior”. Just as it “it divides the presence of the “now” within itself” (Gasch\u00e9, 1986: 202), spacing divides the presence of the “human” within itself. Derrida\u2019s use of the term “spacing” therefore helps to elucidate both the ways in which Cunningham orchestrates seeming opposites (such as stillness and movement, space and time, human and non-human), in his choreographical processes, and the ways in which critics perceive seemingly contradictory qualities in his work. <\/p>\n

Cunningham\u2019s displacements of space\/time and human\/non-human oppositions converge strikingly in his choreography for groups and crowds, where movement constantly disperses and re-groups quasi-sculptural configurations consisting of individuals, couples and clusters, in patterns which seem both arbitrary and necessary. A key aspect of the “spacing” of the human is in fact the process playfully alluded to by Cunningham in the title of CRWDSPCR<\/i>: through differential movements in both time (pacer) and space (spacer), the polarity of individual and group is displaced in the “crowd”, which evokes both human and non-human \u2013 natural and\/or computerized \u2013 patterns. The title of CRWDSPCR<\/i> playfully draws attention to linguistic “spacing” through the removal of vowels, which are present only virtually, through their absence, producing a “crowding” of the letters themselves on the page. This interest in word play is characteristic of Cunningham. Joyce\u2019s influence on Cage is well known, and Cage and Cunningham frequently “browsed” Finnegan\u2019s Wake<\/i>, which inspired the titles of several of Cunningham\u2019s dances, beginning with In the Name of the Holocaust<\/i> in 1943, which Cunningham described as “a word play by Joyce… on “In the name of the Holy Ghost”.(6) Cunningham even wrote a “dance play” in 1943, called Four Walls<\/i>, whose word plays show a strong Joycean influence (Vaughan, 1997: 34), where individual letters and sounds are “choreographed” to form new words. <\/p>\n

In CRWDSPCR<\/i>, it is extremely difficult to separate “individual” from “group” movements. Where large numbers of dancers are on stage, and individual dancers are performing quite disparate movements, they nonetheless function as part of the group, even at the basic level of not bumping into each other when moving very fast and in complex patterns across a crowded stage. (A rehearsal moment captured on video(7) demonstrates this in reverse!) Sometimes dancers perform similar movements, even though spatially positioned as individuals rather than in pairs or groups. The movement impetus appears to be collective rather than individual, as if \u2018programmed\u2019 from outside, by natural or computerized processes. Tobi Tobias notes that: \u2018the whole business [CRWDSPCR<\/i>] \u2013 undeniably lovely, inexplicably stirring \u2013 feels arbitrary and inevitable at the same time\u2019 (1994: 66). As Roslyn Sulcas comments on Loosestrife<\/i>: \u2018as always, the appearance of improvisation coexists with a sense of cool rigor; the brief groupings and dispersions seem unmeditated but necessary\u2019 (1992: 94). At the same time, what may appear to be unison \u2018group\u2019 movements are very often differed\/deferred from within by variations in terms of s\/pacing. Precisely this aspect of CRWDSPCR<\/i> was panned by a critic in the North Carolina Beacon<\/i> apparently unfamiliar with Cunningham\u2019s style and aims, who commented in 1993 that \u2018perhaps MC could have choreographed a piece conveying individuality while making sure his dancers behaved like a company instead of individuals… Only rarely, and probably by accident, were the dancers in synch. For the other 99 percent of the time, one dancer would be just a little off from the others, throwing off the moment and ruining the effect\u2019 (Gay, 1993). <\/p>\n

The interactions seen in CRWDSPCR<\/i> between the individual and the collective, the apparently inevitable and the apparently arbitrary, are typical of Cunningham\u2019s choreography, and have close parallels in Beach Birds<\/i> and Pond Way<\/i>. Pond Way<\/i>, which can be seen as a companion piece to Beach Birds<\/i> and other nature pieces, and where the dancers are often compared with insects or waterbugs, has been described as looking like \u2018nature run through a computer\u2019 (Weinstein, 1998). Here we see small differences in movements which are frequently suggestive of groupings, but no definite configurations. However, there is a strong sense that the figures are functioning as a co-ordinated group, even when they are performing different movements. In Beach Birds<\/i>, the quirky fragmentations of the body, the oddly angled limbs, and, at times, a quasi-robotic rigidity and stiffness, show the influence of \u2018LifeForms\u2019, which encouraged Cunningham to choreograph separately for different parts of the body (arms, legs, torso), thereby making rhythms less organic and increasing their complexity.(8) At the same time, Beach Birds<\/i> famously captures a range of bird-like, but also human movements. Leslie Kendall speaks of \u2018a whole vocabulary of familiar, angular motions: twitching, jerking, hopping, leg shaking, wing stretching, head cocking, group immobility, encroaching on one another\u2019s territory for territory or pairing\u2019 (Kendall, 1983). Alastair Macaulay comments: \u2018There are several passages in which the dancers might be rocks or pebbles; passages which are as human as they are birdlike, such as the male duets in which Fr\u00e9r\u00e9ric Gafner and Thomas Caley pace to and fro as if warily competing for territory, and passages in which wholly human behaviour melts into birdlike behaviour, as in a brief duet for Gafner and Kimberley Bartosik\u2019 (Macaulay, 1995: 263). Clement Crisp described the dancers as \u2018like gulls and not like gulls\u2019 (2000: 18). Cunningham referred to the significance in Beach Birds<\/i> of \u2018birds, obviously, or animals or whatever\u2019, rocks (\u2018the way you are looking at a rock and you go round it, and it looks different each time, as though it were alive too\u2019), and, on a typically laconic note, he added: \u2018I used the idea of a bird, and then since dancers are also human beings, I thought I might as well include that\u2019 (Vaughan, 1997: 258). <\/p>\n

The destabilization of the category of the \u2018human\u2019 can be reinforced by elements of d\u00e9cor and sound as well as movement. Jack Anderson comments on Beach Birds<\/i> that \u2018the impression of avian fluttering is reinforced not only by passages of quivering and flapping, but also by the fact that the arms and shoulders of the costumes designed by Marsha Skinner are black, whereas the rest of the outfits are white. The arms therefore become especially winglike in appearance\u2019 (Anderson, 1994). They appear elongated because the hands are gloved in black. Moreover, the costumes have a direct effect on how the movements are perceived. \u2018These costumes and the amazingly odd arm movements that Cunningham has invented conspire to make the dancers\u2019 upper bodies seem cut off from the lower ones\u2019 (Goldner, 1992). In CRWDSPR<\/i>, the costumes segment the body, following the LifeForms computer programme, into fourteen sections, vertically and horizontally.(9) David Vaughan affirms that in Beach Birds \u2018the lights change on the white backcloth according to a chance-devised lighting plan\u2019 (1995: 29). Interestingly, however, the lighting can evoke naturalistic effects: \u2018Marsha Skinner, a painter from Taos, New Mexico, opts for dominant azure lighting on the backdrop, sometimes tinged with a dawnlike pink. The openness of an ocean is always suggested\u2019 (Kisselgoff, 1992). It also indicates structured progression: \u2018In Beach Birds<\/i>, Marsha Skinner has the dancers at first silhouetted against a deep-blue sky; dawn light slowly rises; finally, they dance against a warm orange\u2019 (Macaulay, 1992: 93). In the film, Beach Birds for Camera<\/i> 1991 (which begins in black and white and later changes to colour), the director, Eliot Caplan, responded to elements of the stage version: \u2018Because the costumes were black and white, I wanted the film to be black and white too . . . I was inspired by Merce, who said that the piece was like a landscape\u2019 (Caplan, 1992). Cage\u2019s music \u2013 FOUR3<\/i> \u2013 has been described as \u2018a soundscape \u2013 the soft and swishy sound of seashells poured out of a vessel and the solitary pluck of a bass\u2019 (Valis Hill, 1992: 57). At the same time, Janice Berman comments that \u2018irksome electronic whines occasionally remind us that this is not supposed to be a replication of nature or of anything other than what it is\u2019 (Berman, 1992). <\/p>\n

In Pond Way<\/i>, too, the lighting suggests both naturalistic and artificial effects: \u2018the shifts from warm to red side lighting, designed by David Covey . . . subtly suggest the passage of a day . . . the shifting patterns are very like the large and small black circles that form the suggestion of an image in the white canvas behind the dancers\u2019 (Dunning, 1998). For this dance, Cunningham asked Roy Lichtenstein to make a backcloth in the style of the paintings in his recent exhibition of \u2018Landscapes in the Chinese Style\u2019 (influenced by Edgar Degas\u2019 landscape monotypes). Lichtenstein died before executing this commission, but his widow allowed Cunningham to select a painting to be used for the dance (Vaughan, 1998: 21). As Tresca Weinstein points out, this backdrop (\u2018Landscape with Boat\u2019) and the unusual shapes created by the costumes, which can make the dancers\u2019 bodies suggestive of insect-like forms, create interesting tensions and interactions between natural elements and computerized patterns. \u2018The play between mechanics and nature is reflected in the costumes and d\u00e9cor for the piece. A dot-matrix Roy Lichtenstein landscape emphasizes the sense of data being endlessly processed, while Suzanne Gallo\u2019s draping costumes suggest wings or extra sets of limbs\u2019 (Weinstein, 1998). <\/p>\n

In BIPED<\/i> (1999), Cunningham\u2019s use of motion capture, in collaboration with Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser, displaces the boundaries of the \u2018human\u2019 in more radical ways than hitherto. Here, human movement itself generates, through the mediation of digital technology and the creative input of individuals, \u2018other\u2019, virtual bodies. The live dancers on stage are seen together with abstract images and dancer figures hand drawn by Eshkar, and animated by motion capture data provided by real dancers, projected in front of the stage on a large scrim.(10) The curtain rises on an ambiguous space which is at once self-contained and open to the audience. We see vertical bars of light aligned assymmetrically along the back wall of the stage, with similar bars projected on the front scrim, more vertical bars at the side, and shifting squares of light moving across the floor. The lines projected on the otherwise transparent scrim at the front create a rainbow-like effect of visibility and intangibility. <\/p>\n

It is into this space, at once mysteriously set apart from and open to the audience, that the dancers – initially a series of soloists \u2013 make their entrances, wearing shimmering, assymmetrically cut leotards designed by Suzanne Gallo. At first, the projection on the scrim is static, but then, in an intimation of what is to come, a cropped blue vertical line unexpectedly begins to slide along from right to left. Later, even more unexpectedly, the dancers on stage are joined by very large, sketchily drawn, dancing figures of light projected on the scrim above and in front of the live dancers. The status of these figures is ambiguous. The combination of the gestural lines of Shelley Eshkar\u2019s drawing and the rhythmic movements derived from the captured motion of real dancers evokes a form of dance which defies distinctions between the embodied and the disembodied, the human and the abstract. The large size of the figures and their position above the dancers, who do not engage directly with them, can also suggest a supernatural presence. They cast shifting reflections in the vertical lines along the back of the stage, emphasizing the enclosed, refractive nature of the performance space. Their sketchy presence is never more than fleeting: they appear and disappear mysteriously at intervals throughout the dance. Shelley Eshkar said that: \u2018we conceived of it [the projection of lines] as a forest, a forest of poles, and at any point in this three-dimensional forest of poles a figure could emerge, but clipped in a two-dimensional way, as though it had just come out of nowhere\u2019 (\u2018Summerdance\u2019). Moreover, this dis\/appearance is paralleled in the live dancers, who sometimes come on stage from the back, in Cunningham\u2019s words, like \u2018something coming out of space, out of fog: the shape isn\u2019t discernible till it appears\u2019, and who, when they exit through the back, seem to \u2018disappear into thin air\u2019.(11) Cunningham specified that this effect was in fact \u2018prompted by what happened with the technology\u2019 adding \u2018you have to keep your eyes open\u2019.(12) <\/p>\n

Eshkar also explained that the lines at the back came about through co-operation with Aaron Copp, the lighting designer. Rather than coincidental juxtaposition of different media, as is usual in Cunningham dances, aspects of the juxtaposition would seem here to be more deliberately orchestrated. Kaiser and Eshkar see themselves as \u2018providing a series of lenses \u2013 each lense alters how we see the dance\u2019 (\u2018Focus Day\u2019). For Kaiser, \u2018the dance is successful if your perception of the dance has been affected by the projections, even when they aren\u2019t present on the screen\u2019 (\u2018Summerdance\u2019). The order in which the computer-generated movement sequences are projected was decided by chance operations. Cunningham was given 25 computer files, and used chance to organize them. However, having observed the projected figures in the performances of BIPED<\/i> at Berkeley, Eshkar and Kaiser noted that they appeared to move far more quickly on the large scrim than they had on the computer screen, and decided to make changes in their colour balance, scale and velocity. Slowing down the larger figures gave them greater mass (\u2018Focus Day\u2019). Moreover, interactions between live dancers and projected images are not limited to the virtual dancer figures. On first viewing, I found these were the most striking of the projected images, but on second and subsequent viewings I was struck increasingly forcibly by other aspects of the computerized projections, notably the assymmetrical rhythms of the vertical bars of light, moving at uneven speeds across the scrim, combining and separating. Horizontal lines also make an appearance, again moving assymmetrically, in changing colours and widths. One projected dancing figure is composed of straight lines which disperse and re-gather as it leaps. On one level, this is purely abstract, but on another level, as Kaiser pointed out, \u2018one can still feel original mass and weight\u2019 (\u2018New Bodies\u2019). Some images are composed of discs moving in patterns which can evoke insects, especially spiders, but may also relate to the original motion capture images seen on a monitor, which Cunningham compared to \u2018a moving Christmas tree with lights\u2019 (\u2018Focus Day\u2019). <\/p>\n

Whereas the dancers are frequently seen moving without any images being projected on the scrim, the projected images are always perceived in counterpoint with the complex rhythms of the dancers. Unlike many Cunningham pieces, there are no moments of stillness here \u2013 the dancers are in constant motion, whose velocity sometimes contrasts with slower movements on the scrim. Especially near the beginning, it is noticeable that when there are numerous dancers on stage they frequently perform rhythmically complex movements in which, although similar gestures and sequences are used, each dancer\u2019s movements are individual and specific and follow their own timing. There is also a lot of duet and some unison work, with growing emphasis on repetition of certain gestures, notably a raised right arm. Towards the end of the dance, the movement takes on increasingly ritualistic qualities (notably the use of raised arms), with configurations suggesting Egyptian-like friezes. This quality is accentuated by a \u2018clothing\u2019 sequence (Suzanne Gallo\u2019s idea), where the male dancers come on stage carrying shirt-like tops with which they dress the female dancers, and by the ceremonial lifting (a recurrent motif in Cunningham) of a female dancer, held aloft in horizontal position by several male dancers. (The vertical-horizontal contrast can be seen here to mirror the relationship between the upright dancer and the stage, but also that between the vertical and horizontal lines.) We also see her (Cheryl Therrien) dancing solo, at one point moving slowly, with both arms held up and bent at the elbows in a hieratic gesture. In the final lifting sequence, she is carried off stage, leaving three couples dancing. In the last few moments, several dancers are still moving, forming complex quasi-sculptural shapes, as the curtain descends. On the one occasion where I was close enough to see their expressions, at the close of the piece, the dancers (very unusual in Cunningham) were smiling, which enhanced the sense that the ceremonial character of the movement had a celebratory quality. <\/p>\n

As with the dances already discussed, many of the most enthusiastic comments on BIPED<\/i> (which has been extremely well received) emphasize what is seen as the successful fusion of dance and technology in ways which enable the human to triumph over technology. \u2018The choreography was a welcome departure for Cunningham, who is sometimes criticized for turning dancers into technicians. In BIPED<\/i>, the dancers were sumptuously human, lengthening their limbs to full extension, fluidly moving through each phrase, and relating to each other onstage\u2019 (Scarry, 1999b). Another critic remarks that: \u2018Cunningham\u2019s triumph here is in not allowing spectral technology to supersede live kinetics\u2019 (Hutera, 2000). However, one of the most striking aspects of the piece is the interaction between the \u2018real\u2019 and the \u2018virtual\u2019. Interestingly, according to Paul Kaiser, Cunningham \u2018wasn\u2019t concerned with the technology overshadowing the dancers. He was more interested in the collision between the two worlds\u2019 (Scarry, 1999a). It is precisely because Cunningham (in Derridean fashion) both maintains and undermines differences (here, between the real and the virtual) by constant metamorphoses between categories that his work creates exciting displacements and tensions which cannot be resolved in univocal interpretations. There is, moreover, an experiential dimension of the relation to \u2018otherness\u2019 which is not explored in Derridean discussions of \u2018spacing\u2019. In BIPED<\/i>, this involves interpenetration of real and virtual spaces, where, through kinesthetic empathy with the virtual as well as the live dancers, spectators can experience a breakdown of boundaries between human and \u2018other\u2019 corporealities. <\/p>\n

Kaiser specified that he and Eshkar had deliberately avoided making the virtual dancers do things which the human body couldn\u2019t do, and, as noted above, that one can still feel \u2018original mass and weight\u2019 (\u2018New Bodies\u2019). At the same time, the figures are sketchily drawn, emphasizing their virtuality. Cunningham described this as \u2018visually marvellously interesting \u2013 the skeleton of the movement but not the fill-out\u2019 (\u2018New Bodies\u2019). What the virtual dancers conserve of human embodiment is encapsulated in movement qualities, which are true to the dynamics of the human body. Motion capture even conserves the idiosyncracies of the movement patterns of individual subjects. Although the dancer figures can connote \u2018life forms\u2019 beyond the human, they are not simply \u2018disembodied\u2019, but rather differently embodied, being true, according to Kaiser, not to appearance but to movement (\u2018New Bodies\u2019). Moreover, spectators of BIPED<\/i> can experience dislocations of time and space, through the irregularity of the rhythms of the dancers, the computerized projections and the interactions between them, and the \u2018dematerialization\u2019 of the space of the stage through use of the devices described above. Eshkar described the entrances and exits of the dancers at the back as a \u2018logic of appearing and disappearing in a way that doesn\u2019t have to do with the physicality of the real stage\u2019 (\u2018Focus Day\u2019). According to one critic, \u2018the dancers seemed to exist in a pulsating space that was in constant flux\u2019 (Felciano, 1999: 72). <\/p>\n

In conclusion, then, Cunningham\u2019s work of the nineties and after (which follows on from and develops key characteristics of his earlier work) exploits the spectator\u2019s capacity for kinesthetic empathy with \u2018other\u2019, unexpected ways of moving and with virtual bodies, in which the worlds of nature and of IT play a key role, thereby displacing and opening up bipedal identities to unforeseen possibilities. <\/p>\n

Notes<\/b><\/p>\n

1. For instance, recent discussions on the Dance Technology Zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the purposes of this discussion, the adjective \u2018human\u2019 will refer to psychological attributes and physical characteristics ascribed to human beings, such as capacity to feel and express emotions, and to move according to parameters defined by the human body. The former, psychological dimension is of particular importance to proponents of \u2018humanist\u2019 values. <\/p>\n

2. For background on this, see http:\/\/www.riverbed.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n

3. Jack Anderson commented that the worst of Cunningham\u2019s works are \u2018bland\u2019. \u2018Their steps, though arranged by chance methods, are studiously tasteful, even bloodless.\u2019 (1993: 786). Cathryn Harding, writing in Isthmus<\/i>, comments on \u2018how passionless and discomfiting a digitally driven world can be\u2019 (1994). <\/p>\n

4. See discussion of Derridean \u2018diff\u00e9rance\u2019, p.? below. \u2018Diff\u00e9rance\u2019 works to subvert synthesis in the form of Hegelian sublation or \u2018Aufhebung\u2019. For a lucid dialogue on this topic, see Derrida\u2019s interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta in Derrida 1972\/1981. See also Broadhurst 1999: 49. <\/p>\n

5. \u2018MC Dance Company at City Center\u2019, Voice, 22 March 1994. CDF. No further details available. <\/p>\n

6. Cited by David Vaughan, in Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years<\/i> (New York: Aperture 1997): 29. See also p.32. <\/p>\n

7. See reference to CRWDSPCR<\/i> video below. <\/p>\n

8. This can also be seen as an extension of the \u2018chance\u2019 principle of juxtaposing unconnected events. <\/p>\n

9. See David Vaughan, Merce Cunningham<\/i>, 268, for more details. <\/p>\n

10. BIPED<\/i> was preceded in 1997-8 by a virtual choreographical installation using motion capture, produced by Cunningham, Eshkar and Kaiser, entitled \u2018Hand Drawn Spaces\u2019. <\/p>\n

11. Merce Cunningham interviewed by Alastair Macaulay, \u2018Merce Cunningham Focus Day\u2019, 14 October 2000, Barbican Centre, London. <\/p>\n

12. Speaking at \u2018New Bodies, New Realities: Live Chat Room\u2019, 15 October, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. <\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

Note: \u2018CDF\u2019 denotes materials held in the archives of the Cunningham Dance Foundation (55 Bethune St, New York, NY 10014) for which full bibliographical references are not available. <\/p>\n

Acocella, Joan (1993), \u2018Merce\u2019s Microchippendales\u2019, Daily News<\/i>, 11 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Acocella, Joan (1999), \u2018The Gambler: Merce Cunningham, at eighty, continues to roll the dice\u2019, The New Yorker<\/i>, 9 August, 84-87. <\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack (1993), \u2018New York Newsletters: Cunningham and Feld\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LXXXII (992), 786-7. <\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack (1994), \u2018Hints of Sea and Sky Amid Stillness\u2019, The New York Times<\/i>, Tuesday, March 15. CDF. <\/p>\n

Anderson, Jack and George Dorris (1994), \u2018NewYork Newsletter: Carousel in New York\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LXXXIV (1004: May), 795-797. <\/p>\n

Beach Birds 1991, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Four\u2019) by John Cage, costumes and lighting by Marsha Skinner. <\/p>\n

Beach Birds for camera (film version) 1991, choreography Merce Cunningham, directed by Elliot Caplan, Design by Elliot Caplan, Tim Nelson, Matthew Williams, Marsha Skinner Berman, Janice (1992), \u2018Mastering the Acts of Nature\u2019, New York Newsday, 19 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Berman, Janice (1994), \u2018Cunningham Company Boasts on Vital “Extra”\u2019, New York Newsday<\/i>, 11 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

BIPED<\/i> 1999, choreography Merce Cunningham, music by Gavin Bryars, computer-enhanced decor by Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar, costumes by Suzanne Gallo. <\/p>\n

Broadhurst, Susan (1999), Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory<\/i>. London: Cassell. <\/p>\n

Caplan, Eliot (1992), programme for Beach Birds for Camera and Torse<\/i>, Sunday 15 November, Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que de la Danse and Op\u00e9ra de Paris Garnier, translation mine. <\/p>\n

Crisp, Clement (2000), \u2018Pierrot\u2019s journey is still marvellous\u2019, Financial Times<\/i>, Thursday 8 June, 18. <\/p>\n

CRWDSPCR<\/i> 1993, choreography Merce Cunningham, Music (\u2018blues 99\u2019) by John King, scenery and costumes by Mark Lancaster.<\/p>\n

Cunningham, Merce (1997) \u2018The Impermanent Art\u2019, pp.86-7 in David Vaughan, Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years<\/i>. New York: Aperture. <\/p>\n

D\u00e9cor<\/i>, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Landscape with Boat\u2019) by Roy Lichtenstein, Costumes Suzanne. <\/p>\n

Derrida, Jacques (1972), Positions<\/i>. Paris: Minuit. (Positions, transl. Alan Bass, 1981. London: Athlone Press). <\/p>\n

Dunning, Jennifer (1998), \u2018By an Evolving Cunningham, Lyrical yet Larger Movement\u2019, The New York Times<\/i>, Monday 3 August. CDF. <\/p>\n

Enter 1992<\/i>, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018Neural Network Plus\u2019) by David Tudor, scenery and costumes by Marsha Skinner, backdrop and costume photography from a video still by. <\/p>\n

Elliot Caplan, \u2018Rideau de sc\u2013 ne\u2019 by John Cage. <\/p>\n

Felciano, Rita (1999), \u2018Dance a little dream of Merce\u2019, Dance Magazine<\/i>, July 1999, 72. <\/p>\n

Gasch\u00e9, Rodolphe (1986), The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection<\/i>. London: Harvard University Press. <\/p>\n

Gay, Nathan J (1993), \u2018Cunningham delights some, irritates others\u2019, North Carolina Beacon<\/i>, 22 July. CDF. <\/p>\n

Goldner, Nancy (1992), \u2018The Cunningham spirit in leaps and bounds\u2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i>, Thursday March 19. CDF. <\/p>\n

Goldner, Nancy (1994), \u2018Merce Cunningham\u2019s new work, “Crwdspcr”\u2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i>, Thursday 12 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Harding, Cathryn (1994), \u2018Mechanical Genius\u2019, Isthmus<\/i>, 4 March. (CDF) <\/p>\n

Hutchinson, Ann (1964), \u2018The Merce Cunningham Company\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LIV (648: September), 620-1 and 662. <\/p>\n

Hutera, Donald (2000), \u2018Cunningham dance show is high-tech triumph\u2019, Star Tribune<\/i>, Minneapolis, 7 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Johnson, Jill (1968), \u2018My Memory about certain things\u2019, Dance Perspectives (34), 21. <\/p>\n

Jordan, Stephanie (1999), pp. 61-69 in \u2018Freedom from the Music: Cunningham, Cage and Collaborations\u2019, in Germano Celant (ed) Merce Cunningham. Milan: Charta, 1999. <\/p>\n

Jowitt, Deborah (1993), \u2018Like Lava\u2019, Village Voice<\/i>, 23 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Kendall, Leslie (1983), \u2018Cunningham dancers focus on pure movement at the Pillow\u2019, The Daily Gazette<\/i>, 8 July, CDF. <\/p>\n

Kisselgoff, Anna (1992), \u2018Surreal Beach Life Amid the Silences of Unreality\u2019, New York Times<\/i>, Thursday 19 March. (CDF) <\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1992), \u2018Happy Hooligan\u2019, The New Yorker<\/i>, 27 April, 90-93. <\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1995), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LXXXVI (1023: December), 263. <\/p>\n

Macaulay, Alastair (1999), \u2018Nice footwork from the master of reinvention\u2019, Financial Times<\/i> (NY) 5 May, 13. <\/p>\n

Mazo, Joseph H. (1994), \u2018In Step with the Software\u2019, The Record<\/i>, Friday 14 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

\u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center\u2019 (1994), Voice, 22 March. CDF. <\/p>\n

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), Le Visible et l\u2019invisible<\/i>. Paris: Gallimard. <\/p>\n

Robertson, Allen (1994), \u2018Merce, Mark and Miami\u2019, Dance Now<\/i>, 3 (3), Autumn, 70-73. <\/p>\n

Pond Way<\/i> 1998, choreography Merce Cunningham, music (\u2018New Ikebukuro\u2019) by Brian Eno.<\/p>\n

Scarry, Siobhan (1999a), \u2018Devising the Digital Dance\u2019, in Wired News<\/a>, 20 April. <\/p>\n

Scarry, Siobhan (1999b), \u2018In Step with Digital Dance\u2019, Wired News<\/a>, 26 April. <\/p>\n

Sulcas, Roslyn (1991), \u2018Merce Cunningham, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville, Paris\u2019, Dance and Dancers<\/i> (November), 26-27. <\/p>\n

Sulcas, Roslyn (1992), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville, Paris\u2019, September 10-21, 1991\u2019, Dance Magazine<\/i> (January), 94-6. <\/p>\n

Tobias, Tobi (1993), \u2018From Here to Eternity\u2019, New York Magazine<\/i>, 29 March 1993, 93. <\/p>\n

Tobias, Tobi (1994), \u2018Age and Innocence\u2019, New York Magazine<\/i>, 4 April, 66. <\/p>\n

Valis Hill, Constance (1992), \u2018Merce Cunningham Dance Company at City Center Theater, Premiere of “Beach Birds”\u2019, Attitude 8<\/i> (3), Spring\/Summer, 57. <\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1995), \u2018Merce Cunningham returns to London\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LXXXVI (1021: October), 29-31. <\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1997), Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years<\/i>. New York: Aperture. <\/p>\n

Vaughan, David (1998), \u2018Merce Cunningham at the Barbican\u2019, The Dancing Times<\/i>, LXXVIII (1055: October), 19 and 21. <\/p>\n

Vranish, Jane (1994), \u2018Cunningham Daring, but a bit more accessible\u2019, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/i>, Monday 26 September. <\/p>\n

Weinstein, Tresca (1998), \u2018Cunningham\u2019s work is full of beauty\u2019, Times Union<\/i>, Albany, NY, Thursday 30 July. CDF. <\/p>\n

Live Events<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018Merce Cunningham Focus Day\u2019, 14 October 2000, Barbican Centre, London. <\/p>\n

\u2018New Bodies, New Realities: Live Chat Room\u2019, 15 October, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. <\/p>\n

Websites<\/b><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duounreal.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news<\/a> <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedstills.htm<\/a> – BIPED STILLS<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedphotos.htm<\/a> – BIPED PHOTOS<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.riverbed.com\/duoframe\/duobipedqt.htm<\/a> – BIPED CLIPS<\/p>\n

Video \/ TV<\/b><\/p>\n

CRWDSPCR<\/i>. (1996). 55 minutes, color. Available in film and video. Choreography by Merce Cunningham. Directed by Elliot Caplan. Music by John King (“blues 99”). Produced by the Cunningham Dance Foundation, Inc. <\/p>\n

SUMMERDANCE, \u2018MERCE CUNNINGHAM\u2019<\/i>. (2000). Directed by Charles Atlas. Executive director, Sheldon Schwartz. BBC 2, 26 August.
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dee Reynolds disseca a obra genial de Merce Cunningham, incluindo Biped<\/i>, que est\u00e1 em turn\u00ea pelo Brasil.<\/span>Dee Reynolds analyzes the genius work of Merce Cunningham, including Biped<\/i>, currently on tour in Brasil.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28],"tags":[1110,1117,1118,1119,678,129],"yoast_head":"\nDeslocando humanos: as multid\u00f5es de Merce Cunningham | Displacing \u2018Humans\u2019: Merce Cunningham\u2019s Crowds -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idanca.net\/deslocando-humanos-as-multidoes-de-merce-cunningham\/\" 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