Detail

Merce Cunningham: “In applying chance to space I saw the possibility of mulitdirection. Rather than thinking in one direction, i.e. to the audience in a proscenium frame, direction could be four sided and up and down.” Just as many composers after 1945 attempted to replace traditional notation systems with new forms, choreographers such as Merce Cunningham also experimented with graphic ways of representing movement. Moving away from classical dance steps and rejecting the traditional repertoire of ballet demanded a new code and a new notation for dance pieces. New York artist Merce Cunningham began to work on notation methods with the foundation of his own Merce Cunningham Company in 1952, later including video technology and computer programs. In the small unsigned piece of dance notation you can see here he used a ballpoint pen and a piece of graph paper. Lines and sequences of numbers in the small squares indicate movements, processes, and rhythms, making it possible to copy them. But just as in music, the layperson finds these complex depictions puzzling. The notation of the choreography can be read as a graphic representation, the abstract translation of positions of the arms and feet, of directions of movement and sequences. Dance theory describes Merce Cunningham’s style as follows: “Dance takes place independently of and yet simultaneously with music and setting. Using technically demanding and stylized movements, the dancers become autonomous, abstract figures that move at a certain time and at a certain point in space. [. . .] The body becomes an instrument, the material that triggers physiological and kinesthetic sensations in the viewer.”