TitleMerce Cunningham narration audio takes for Camera three: a video Event (Motion picture): and, Event for television (Motion picture) ; and, David Vaughan's lecture on Merce Cunningham, 1974-05/1978
Additional title: Camera three: a video EventAdditional title: Event for televisionAdditional title: Event (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Additional title: Camera three (Television program)Additional title: Dance in America
NamesMerce Cunningham Dance Company (Associated name)Ardolino, Emile (Television producer)Brockway, Merrill (Television director)Cunningham, Merce (Narrator)Vaughan, David, 1924- (Speaker)Cage, John (Composer)Wolff, Christian, 1934- (Composer)WCBS-TV (Television station : New York, N.Y.) (Broadcaster)WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.) (Broadcaster)
CollectionMerce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials
Dates / OriginDate Created: 1974-05Date Created: 1976-11Date Created: 1978 (Inferred)
Library locationsRodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded SoundShelf locator: *LTC-A 1444
TopicsAtlas, CharlesCage, JohnCunningham, MerceGraves, Morris, 1910-2001Johns, Jasper, 1930-Lancaster, Mark, 1938-Morris, Robert, 1931-Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008Merce Cunningham Dance CompanyCanfield (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Event (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Inlets (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Minutiae (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Root of an unfocus (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Second hand (Choreographic work : Cunningham)TV rerun (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Variations V (Choreographic work : Cunningham)Walkaround time (Choreographic work : Cunningham)ChoreographyDance in motion pictures, television, etcDance -- Study and teachingMusic and danceTheaters -- Stage-setting and sceneryCage, John. Branches. SelectionsWolff, Christian, 1934- Burdocks. SelectionsFilm soundtracksFilm soundtracks
Genresspoken wordMusicLectures
NotesContent: Contains audio track recordings of Merce Cunningham's narration for Camera three: A video Event (Motion picture), and for Event for television (Motion picture). Also contains a lecture given by David Vaughan at an unidentified date and location. The relationships between the audio takes and the lecture, if any, are unidentified.Content: Title, dates and locations provided by cataloger based on typed and handwritten notes on original containers and cassettes, audition, and information provided by David Vaughan's Merce Cunningham: Fifty years (New York, Aperture).Content: Typed note on original container no. 1: "Camera III Part 1 & 2 - David Vaughan Lecture". Handwritten note on original container no. 1: "A. 30 min. approx ; many gaps ; B. DV Lecture ; entire side ; 45 min". Handwritten note on original cassette no. 1: "A. Camera III Part I + II ; B. DV Lecture Part I".Content: Typed note on original container no. 2: "Dance in America - David Vaughan Lecture". Handwritten note on original container no. 2: "A. only to first marker ; 1/6 tape ; 8 min or so ; B. first 1/3 of tape ; 15 min or so". Handwritten note on original cassette no. 2: "A. Dance in America ; first 1/8th ; B. DV Lecture Part II - 160 ; first 3/8".Venue: Camera three: a video Event recorded at the WCBS-TV Studio, New York, New York, 1973 May.Venue: Event for television recorded at the Grand Ole Opry for WNET's Dance in America program in, Nashville, Tennessee, 1976 November.Venue: Lecture recorded at an unidentified location in 1978 [date based on the mention of the premiere performance of Inlets (1977) and the screening of Roamin' I (1978) in David Vaughan's lecture].Acquisition: Gift; Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, 2011-2012.
Physical DescriptionAudiocassetteExtent: 2 audiocassettes (98 minutes total) : analogSound quality of streaming files 1 and 3 are good; streaming file 1 contains background sounds of Cunningham teaching and the dancers' footfalls. Sound quality of streaming files 2 and 4 are fair; while the speaker is audible, there is a loud hum throughout the recordings.
DescriptionStreaming file 1, cassette no. 1, side a: Take one information and test tones; Merce Cunningham introduces Camera three: A video Event; Cunningham speaks about teaching; he gives an overview of his choreographic process and approach; he speaks about his dancers and their approach to his choreography; Cunningham gives an example of what he calls "facts in dancing" by describing his Winterbranch (1964); Cunningham briefly describes the choreographic structure of Second hand (1970); [excerpt of music plays: Christian Wolff's Burdocks (1971)]; Cunningham speaks about the independence of dance and music in his work; Cunningham describes a new work in progress; [musical excerpt plays: Christian Wolff's Burdocks (1971)]; Cunningham describes his TV rerun (1972); ends abruptly, ca. 22:11; take two information and test tones, ca. 22:12-22:30; Cunningham describes his choreographic process; he speaks about walking as movement; he speaks about the general structures of his dances, especially his use of timing with a stopwatch; he speaks about the ambiguity of meaning in his work; Cunningham briefly describes his Changing steps (1973), and Landrover (1972); he tells an anecdote about a conversation at a party for the New York Mycological Society; [excerpt of music plays: Christian Wolff's Burdocks (1971)]; Cunningham briefly describes his Signals (1970); he speaks about how his deep enjoyment of dance sustains his interest in dance.
Streaming file 2, cassette no. 1, side b: David Vaughan gives an introduction to his lecture on Merce Cunningham at an unidentified location; Vaughan gives a biographical overview of Cunningham's life and career in dance; topics include: Cunningham's early years and dance teachers, Cunningham's activities while at Cornish College of the Arts, John Cage teaching at Cornish College, artistic influences on Cunningham during his student years including being in the Pacific northwest, teacher Bonnie Bird, anthropologist Joyce Wike, writer Nancy Wilson Ross, Dada and Zen Buddhism, Cunningham's meeting of Martha Graham and moving to New York to dance with her Martha Graham Dance Company, presenting a concert at Bennington College in 1942 with Jean Erdman and Nina Fonaroff with music by Cage, the repeat of the concert in New York that included his Totem ancestor (1942), Cunningham and Cage's tour of the United States by car throughout the late 1940's and the audiences' reception of those performances, Cunningham's Root of an unfocus (1944) and the relationship between the music and dance in that work, [shows an excerpt from Second hand (1970)], the influence of James Joyce's writings on Cunningham, Ballet Society's commission for the Seasons (1947) and Isamu Noguchi's sets, the summer of 1948 at Black Mountain College and the collaborative performance of Erik Satie's Piège de Méduse, Sixteen dances for soloist and company of three (1951) as the first instance of Cunningham's use of chance methods, the Brandeis University commissioned works Noces (1952) and Collage (1952), the summer of 1952 at Black Mountain College and a performance there of one of the first "happenings", influences on Cunningham and Cage at that time including Abstract Expressionist paintings and their study of Zen Buddhism, Cunningham and Cage's meeting of Robert Rauschenberg in 1952, taking dancers to Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953 as the formation of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Cunningham's collaboration with Rauschenberg on Minutiae (1954), [shows an excerpt from Minutiae], Cunningham's use of chance methods in choreography, Cunningham's influence on the Judson Dance Theater and the differences of his work from theirs, [shows an excerpt from Story (1963)], the Company tours in the Volkswagon bus, the Company's 1964 world tour and recognition in Europe that created more interest in United States, Rauschenberg leaving the Company in 1964, the multi-media work Variations V (1965); ends abruptly.
Streaming file 3, cassette no. 2, side a: An introduction to the Event for television, John Cage's Branches (1976) plays in the background throughout; Merce Cunningham speaks about his definition of dance and his lifelong interest in dance; Cunningham speaks about the collage of dances from his repertory presented in the program; he tells a brief anecdote about an audience's response to his work; he gives the date range for the works shown; he speaks about the independence of the music and dance, their coexistence in performance, and their representation of complex relationships in nature; he continues to speak about what dancing means to him as an "amplification of energy"; more on his interest in new movement, collaborating with composers, and the dancers with whom he works; he gives a brief explanation on how to view his works.
Streaming file 4, cassette no. 2, side b: Begins abruptly; David Vaughan continues to give a biographical overview of Merce Cunningham's life and career in dance; topics include: Cunningham's multi-media work Variations V (1965), Jasper Johns joining the Company as artistic advisor and his selection of other artists who created set designs for Cunningham's works, the set for Walkaround time (1968) that was inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Large glass and constructed by Johns, the set by Robert Morris for Canfield (1969), more on how Cunningham collaborated with visual artists and composers, the creation of the structure for, and concepts behind, Events in 1964, Mark Lancaster, the current artistic advisor and set designer for the Company, the set by Morris Graves for Inlets (1977), Cunningham's interest in exploring dance for the camera, especially his collaborations with filmmaker Charles Atlas, [shows excerpts from Fractions (1977), Locale (1977), and Roamin' I (1978)].
Type of ResourceSound recording
LanguagesEnglish
IdentifiersRLIN/OCLC: 913959690NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b20732878Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): bd4abd70-b8f7-0133-d909-60f81dd2b63c
Rights StatementThis item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
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