Simon G

I thought I'd alert everyone to this who might be interested. There's a 10 minute film of Appalachian Spring with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Erik Hawkins, May O'Donnell shot in 1944. The quality is poor and the soundtrack has been added on top of what was shot originally in silence but it's an incredible remnant of dance history and well worth a look. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEvcP-vXk4M

Hi Fauxpas That wasn't Ulanova who said that it was Plisetskaya in the 1987 documentary the BBC made about the Bolshoi to accompany their London season. Also what she actually and said in relation to choreography at the Bolshoi and her ow attempts to choreograph Anna Karenina to break free of the Soviet mould, "we are standing still and that which stands still goes backwards." I was ten when I saw that documentary and it stuck with me. I'm cursed with a photographic memory if my mind makes a point of something I never forget it.

So maybe the idea of his works being in a different form, being archived and licensed, and as video records, the body of them going through a true "sea change" is not such a recent one. Or maybe he doesn't quite know, and is moving towards some resolution, but nonetheless is in sly control, as people who set up trusts--at least in novels--often are. When the great Polish director Tadeusz Kantor died, his company did a final tour, then disbanded, leaving memories of his work cleanly intact. Quiggan, The thing is though, Cunningham's exploration into film with Atlas and Kaplan wasn't to record for posterity and put away, it was about the collaborative effort of disparate mediums and how it could advance the art. No different from chance operations, collaborations with Cage, Tudor, Rauschenberg, Johns etc. Not all of those collaborations were entirely successful but it was a period and it moved on. The extensive use of archive footage is why Cunningham's classics weren't lost and why they could be reinterpreted, restaged and passed down so effectively through generations. Why the restaging of Crises from 1960 was a storming success, yet the recent restaging of Graham's 1958 Clytemnestra, which relied primarily on memory and remnants of film wasn't. Yes, perhaps Cunningham wants to take a Grahem-esque approach, when he goes all the lights go out, but this is selfish. Cleanly intact, nothing is ever left cleanly intact, times change, performance styles change, technique advances, new interpretors make the work their own - it's natural and maybe it's not as "great" as it may have been, but it's different and the work moves forward into new generations. To be afraid of change to an extent where 70 years of achievement and revolution are to be shut away isn't progress, it's regressive. It's funny you should mention Kanter, I used to be friends with one of his main actresses, Sophia Kalinska, a very ballsy woman. To deny the world however, a body of work, a lifetime of dance which pretty much changed the world is just wrong. It's unfair and terribly selfish, which is a pity because in his dance at least, Cunningham was the most generous and outward looking creator of the latter half of the 20th century and beyond. Dance students and performers of 20 or 30 years in the future deserve more than merely saying they saw a film clip of Biped, or discussed chance operations in a dance theory lesson. You know, if when he does die, I were to think of a perfect eulogy to Cunningham and his work and legacy I could think of nothing better than his famous quote: This Living Legacy Plan just seems the antithesis to that sentiment. It's storing away into archives and museums, all those incredible wonderful fleeting moments of life he created. Ultmately for what? If they're not performed, they're worthless.

Dirac, Do you know what just struck me? The irony of the title "Living Legacy Plan" - it won't be alive, it'll be contained on "film capsule" stuck in an archive and exhumed every so often when a ballet company wants to pick over the bones. The Foundation which is founded on Cunningham Technique will be meaningless if that technique is no longer taught and alive, and within a generation there'll be no one left to teach it with authority or passion. Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre course of action, it reminds me of one of those Soviet Five Year Plans for productivity. As well as the two year touring party with one final posthumous bash. Did they stop to think what if the dancers don't want to be contracted for those two years or if one decides to leave part way through - do they then forsake their severance pay? I also think it's quite presumptuous to state that the money will be there to help them find new careers - is the foundation so self-involved it sees no life in dance after Cunningham? I've written a lot here about my dismay at the treatment of the "Cunningham Three", this Legacy Plan just deepens my feeling that what's happening here is an atrophying of something that is potentially still so alive, enshrining in a tomb of something that exists after Cunningham's death; with the gatekeeper or prospective applicants for that role being Carlson, Swinston & Kuhn Graham famously said she didn't want her choreography to exist after her death, indeed when she could no longer dance - it would seem Cunningham is set to achieve that which she never could. Moreover, does anyone else feel that $8million+ for something that no one will ever use is a bit much? Graham and Limon attempt to carry on their founders' legacies where it counts, through performance. This quote from the omnipresent Carlson, caught my attention: Atrophy, internment and dissolution are hardly precedent setting. And offering a new model? How, exactly, how?

Reported in the NY Times following a Cunningham Foundation press conference is the Living Legacy Plan: http://www.merce.org/p/living-legacy-plan.html The NY Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/arts/dan...gham&st=cse Don't quite know what to make of it. The sense of dread comes from the fact that the company will be disbanded, and control of the "legacy"seems most likely to pass into the hands of the triumverate of Swinston, Carlson and Kuhn whose control of the company is fast becoming absolute. I feel that work remains alive as does a choreographer through performance, that Cunningham has a body of work which stands the test of time, doesn't become dated and is best served through continual performance. Again Protas & Graham are mentioned and it seems that turning the Foundation into effectively an archive is seen as a way of avoiding the acrimonious legal battles over ownership of the Graham legacy - though the courts ultimately ruled that the Graham legacy belonged to the people and to performance and not one man. Would Petipa, Ashton, Tudor, et al be best remembered through archives - how long would those classics be preserved if eliminated from the performance world. The notion of "digital capsules" as a means to preserve forever work is a contentious one - work is preserved in the body of the dancer. They talk about money, which could have a factor in the company's disbanding, which in the light of the sacking of the three most senior, highly paid dancers seems increasingly the case for much of this current scrabbling for pole position as torch bearer for the legacy. The Foundation are raising $8million for this Legacy Plan to be properly implemented - would that money be better spent ensuring the legacy is continued through performace? And finally Swinston, Carlson and Kuhn - they're mortal, they're fallible, what happens to the internicine politics which these three have been involved in as they've positioned themselves to be the torch bearers of the Legacy. cunningham in the NY article seems incredibly reticent it seems he just wants to continue making dance - and again the omnipresent Carlson is the only one whose voice we hear. He swears blind he doesn't speak for Merce - and that much I actually do believe, though of course he sees it as being Cunningham's mouthpiece. Who exactly are they preserving the work for? And by turning the Foundation into an archive who do they think will be performing the work in the future? The only companies which can afford to stage Cunningham's work in any fully-realised form are ballet companies and ballet dancers aren't Cunningham dancers they're not modern dancers. And then only a handful of works which can be slotted in time wise to mixed bills and the technique of which can be adapted for a ballet dancer doesn't ensure that that magnificent body of work can be represented in any meaningful way. And if the Cunningham dancers are no longer rooted in the repertory, are no longer being trained and aware of the technique as a vibrant living art form, who will be left to even teach these works and technique?

Hi Jack, I think it was this book: http://www.amazon.com/Stravinsky-Balanchin...266&sr=1-14 Or it may have been this one in one of the recollections: http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Balanchine-...457&sr=1-28 Or possibly this one: http://www.amazon.com/Balanchines-Ballerin...551&sr=1-24 Sorry, all I can really remember is how surprised I was too when I read about it and the way it made me look at Agon differently when I next saw it. Hope that help?

Papeetepatrick, This is also one of the most damning criticisms of Blanchine and from the anti-Balanchine lobby proof that he isn't a "great" choreographer and a criticism which is continually and very often rightly levied against choreographers. The monkey see, monkey do, approach to constructing dance so that all it is, is a visualisation of musical notes. Stavinsky was highly censorious of Balanchine's use of his music in Agon, where indeed it literally is a movement a note almost and the vibrato viola of Concerto Barocco where the ballerina is lifted on her partners hip in lilting curves to accompany the solo i beautiful, indeed, but again it conversely can be argued that as choreography it's weak. Ditto the high kicking ballerina quartet in Melancholic. That's why I love Balanchine story ballets and in that I include Apollo, because the music is so dramatically interpreted it breaks free of the step for note exchange. Increasingly I do find myself questioning my love of Balanchine and how inventive some of his ballets are for me. Certainly I find myself appreciating more and more the genius of Ashton and his musicality it's like quicksilver and so seamless, I love him.

I'm sorry Miliosr, I have a tendency to come over as a bit "arsey" sometimes, I think I realised after posting that perhaps I was over-reacting to some things. The ballet vs modern disparity in funding is equally contentious in the UK, where the Royal gets £70m in Government subsidy before any private donations and fund raising or corporate donations and incredibly creative modern concerns get peanuts - you're right it is galling. Also in terms of the long race yes, at the moment Cunningham is the leader of the pack, whether he still will be ten years after his death, or rather whether the company will be is another matter. I'm sure Protas never imagined there would be a time he'd be scrabbling after Graham died.

Miliosr I don't quite understand what the point is? I looked up the guidestar tax returns which in fairness quote 2007 as the last tax year available and what did it do? Confirm that the five companies I named and Trisha Brown are considerably healthier financially than Limon or other minor dance foundations. All you have to do is go on the various companies websites look at the schedules of performances, touring venues, number of performances and foreign touring and the question would have been answered, only less specifcally. Why would NYCB make one "gag"? NYCB is an organisation which employs hundreds of dancers, administrators, dance professionals it's an organisation which actively promotes and trains and creates jobs and that takes a hell of a lot of money but also gives out money in terms of employment. And yes the disparity between ballet funding and modern dance funding is galling. But then you could equally argue that the disparity between commercial dance theatre such as Hairspray the Musical, Mamma Mia etc is equally as unjust. However, you start to go down that route and you're on dangerous ground, deciding on personal bias what has the right to survive on artistic merit and worth which is wholly personal. I agree with you there's more enriching content in the Limon and Humphrey legacies than in Mamma Mia, BUT Mamma Mia can pay for itself, Limon, Humphrey even Cunningham can't - there's a majority that would argue then surely Mamma Mia has more right to exist as it has something people want and actively seek out and pay for. I also think it's unfair to paraphrase my point by a glib "winners" and "also rans". Go back fifty years and Graham and Limon were the winners indeed less than 30 years and Graham would have been viewed as the unquestioned top dog of contemporary dance and Cunningham the "also ran" or poor cousin. And looking over the 990s confirmed what I suspected - the salaries for dancers in the Cunningham company alone is the same amount as Limon's total tax return sum. BTW I was involved with the production administration of one of the "big five"'s four performance tour to London a few years ago - the amount that had to be raised from the London end was in excess of a half million dollars, that was for a four performance, one venue booking. Please correct me if I'm wrong but the gist of your contention over the Humphrey legacy is that life is not fair. I agree with you that the Humphrey legacy has been poorly upheld or remembered and yes it's a tragedy. But there are Humphrey foundations in the US in Illinois and in London. Those forms however don't explain why artistically some legends fade, others flourish and still others are forgotten altogether - (but to reiterate my earlier point Trisha Brown is a choreographer whose work has been taken into several ballet companies).

Actually in relation to Balanchine did anyone see those interviews with Tallchief describing how he formed her or reformed her into a technical instrument capable of dancing his choreography? I thought that really interesting, this came after Ballets Russes, those incredible early works which must have been danced in the Petrograd style, after his first US experiments and after those long fallow years of little or no ballet choreography, when Kirstein had seen in Balanchine the future and was willing to finance and put his considerable resources into creating their vision of "American" ballet. What I found most fascinating was that here was a man who knew choreography but had a vision of how choreography should be reinvented and reformed in relation to a totally new approach to technique and he was reinventing the ballerina and her technique to express and interpret that - he was creating a new instrument for dance, both reimagining the old works and inventing the new. By this stage Balanchine was a "mature" seasoned and highly exerienced choreographer, of course, but it was like he was being born anew - all those years had led him to a point where he was starting from scratch. And I think that's what nurturing is reaching a point where the triumphs and failures create a full-blown artist.

Hey Dirac, Yes, I know, but I think that's what made him, and Ashton, perhaps it wouldn't have been their first choice but how different would their art have been without that huge eclectic tapestry of experience, those years in which they formulated their views on society, life, their world and how it would impact on the art they came to create. That's the thing, I don't see those experiences as negative at all. In relation to Quiggan saying that everything that there is to be said, or done has been, true, but what is infinite in variety is the way the individual reinterprets.Would someone who's spent their whole life within a studio, first as dancer then as choreographer have that wealth of experience to draw from? That's part of my problem with Christopher Wheeldon, he knows his technical onions, you can't argue that but the outlook is as academic as a series of barre exercises - the intellectual motivation behind the work, kind of parochial. It's the individual who has seen a great deal who makes work worth a damn. I think that's what I've been unclear in saying, i believe that instead of interrupting their progress as choreographers that wealth of life experience in no small part made them.

Hans, I didn't take it to mean that Kathleen was saying musical theatre wasn't deserving of great dance makers at all. What I meant was that those great choreographers specfically Balanchine & Ashton Robbins, Demille, Petit etc worked and created in such a time the divisions between high and "low" art weren't so cut, it wasn't a case of never the twain - and perhaps that's why their art continues to be so relevant and their sensibilities as creative artists were more catholic (in the non religious sense of universal). Those great bastions of high art such as the Royal & NYCB are actually historically pretty recent occurrences and it's sad how divorced the public at large increasingly sees ballet as being. If a choreographer has any duty whatsoever it's to create art and dances which reflect his society and are for his society - be relevant and then perhaps you'll have great choreography. I wonder though is there really a dearth of choreographers creating today? I don't know, what's perhaps more apt is that there's a dearth of anything meaningful being done in choreography, leaving no impression and being so quickly forgotten.

I'm not sure I agree with this summation CMB, competitions are really increasingly seen as a passport to a company job, in a field in which jobs are becoming scant, companies having funding cut, companies downsizing or closing altogether and the few entry positions narrowing and with dancers holding on to jobs for longer than usual at corps level. An astounding talent will always be given room, but with technique becoming so homogenised and prevalant there are too many dancers being trained for too few positions if any. Coupled with the fact that dance training is astronomically expensive - it's why foreign dancers go for the Prix de Lausanne for the Royal Ballet scholarship - because it's the best bet for a job with a company that offers 52 week contracts and a modicum of job security. Especially in the current climate who can afford to train their children and even if one could who would want their children to graduate with no qualifications, into a field with fewer and fewer job opportunities or future and definitely no financial security? In regards to the question of nurturing new choreographic talent, something struck me, what exactly do you (general you) want to see choreographed? Without an underlying intellectual and emotional and artistic intelligence even the prettiest of pretty dances is just that a dance. A great choreographer has something to say, the problem is will anyone want to listen?

Kathleen, Before Balanchine & Ashton became "set in stone greats" they both worked in commercial theatre, in Broadway, Vaudeville, The Negroe Revues, Films, commercial dance - it was their take on how populism could enrich ballet that moved them forward to become what they were. Nor were they alone De Mille, Holm, Falco, Massine, Petit - none of them were adverse to exploring the wider field and using their findings to enrich creativity. What will make ballet die and wither is viewing it as rarified, too precious to be tainted by base popular entertainment forms. If what it is is a language that can't be deciphered in any other format or form than classical purity it will be Latin; a dead language of interest to historians, librarians and antiquarians. In their lifetimes the greats who now are viewed as establishment were straining to break free of the weight of the past, to find how classicism was relevant to creating within their time and space and for the society in which they lived - it's what artistic progression is about. Balanchine & Ashton were lucky they had nascent companies and space to create as much as they wanted, to make mistakes and lived in a time when ballet was seen as relevant, or at least more relevant than it is now. But to yearn for a past which probably never truly existed in the first place, to attach to it a quality of a halcyon nirvana to aspire to is a death knell. If ballet's apogee is historical and it's salvation as an art form is nothing but looking back and regressing,then perhaps it'll deserve to be relegated to the forgotten & dead languages file.

Cubanmiamiboy, I think this anecdote sums up the problem that ballet is facing in trying to contiue, especially in the current climate, and that is one of money. The National Ballet of Cuba being probably the only ballet company continuing under a Communist regime and probably the closet thing in the world today of a company which still functions under the financial an artistic ethos of a company during the ballet boom years of the 50s to 70s. Alonso could afford to do this on her home turf, whether she could afford to do this on a touring agenda is doubtful - she tours the big three acts because she knows that the virtuosos she's bred are her selling point for western audiences who equate ballet with circus tricks. The biggest problem that Russian ballet faced in the past 20 years was glasnost, when state funding disappeared and the Kirov and Bolshoi had to operate under the money-driven agendas of major western companies. However, even during Communisim they stuggled on foreign tours, I remember reading once on a tour of the US in the 70s the Bolshoi was so cash strapped and the per diem for the dancers so meagre that they ate dog food until Sol Hurok stepped in and increased their living expenses. Whether this is true or not, I'm not sure. But in terms of choreography one can argue that great choreography of the 20th century was a Western phenomenon - Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, Fokine, Lifar, Nijinska, Nijinsky, Macmillan, Cranko - they flourished in the west. Not a single piece of choreography created behind the Iron Curtain survived or was taken into western reps pre or post glanost. Another problem is that ballet isn't cool - in the public consciousness it's anachronistic. I once heard some rather glib man dismiss Serenade as just a "typical classical ballet piece" - there was no way he could understand that it was an iconic piece of neo modernism, one of the cornerstones of choreography that reinvented ballet form for the 20th century. Likewise Les Sylphides (or Chopiniana) a novice sees the romantic tutus, here's the music and sadly turns off. How can one describe to a naysayer it's importance in ballet modernism? One can't. All you can do is hope that a first time viewer will have the curiosity piqued and decide to find out more for themselves. Money is such a key issue and it's sad that a new Tharp at great expense will pay for itself in a way that a restaging of Les Sylphides or Les Noces won't. I read an interview with Wayne MacGregor where he stated his fee for a new ballet is upwards of $70,000. For a half hour of his grim supported rhytmic gymnastics, what a rip off! The thing I truly hate about his choreography for ballet, or rather ballet dancers is how regressive and mysogynous it is - this is partly due to the fact that he has no knowledge of ballet technique, so he sees the pointe shoe as a means by which a man can twist a woman into unfeasible pretzel shapes and use her legs as calipers. The image of women in ballet is an ambivalent one, especially the view of the pointe shoe and great choreography for women celebrates the virtuosity of pointe work - all Macgregor does is take it back a century; his endlessly manipulated women are no more emancipated than the 19th century image of romantic ballerinas - it's an S&M update.

Ray, I think that's an apt choice of phrase in relation to this thread. Do you think that ballet is actually continuing in terms of progressing as an art form or just standing still. Kind of like a static passenger on a conveyor belt? Cubanmiamiboy, I was slightly "peeved" by your saying that the audience shouldn't be exposed to a Tharp work when they don't know Chopiniana or Giselle - I find this quite a exclusory mind set and I want you to know that I'm not criticising you for that, I used to really take umbrage when audiences would clap to high heaven some God-awful new piece and be left cold by a classic - but the sad truth is that many of those greats aren't easy to take on first viewing for non regular ballet goers - and there's also a great deal to be said for the argument that if In The Upper Room appeals to far more people than Chopiniana or Les Noces then is it a greater work? If nothing else it's infused far more with the passion for watching dance. I don't believe that for a second, by the way, but I have to accept that the work which I know I could come to a site like this and wax lyrical over and have my appreciation appreciated by other ballet lovers, leaves novice ballet goers bolting for the exits. To come back to the next Balanchie, I think to you could swap Balanchine in the title for Ashton, Nijnska, Tudor - what you're asking is will there ever be another period in history where a talent for choreography of that level be nurtured, given room to grow, be of importance to society, have a place in society? I don't know, I don't think so. I think the saddest thing about the Royal Ballet's belief that they've found a new ballet pop God in Wayne MacGregor, is how much they've miscalculated. Chroma was a hit because a) the seats were dirt cheap and b) the music was by Joby Talbot from the Divine Comedy interpolating Blue Orchid by The White Stripes - the "yoof" crowd weren't coming because ballet was suddenly cool again, they were coming for the novelty of hearing pop music on a classical orchestra and to see some dancers "jump around" - they came to see a pop video and when it was over they left the Opera house and never went back again. And one thing I do believe in relation to Ray's very poignant use of "continuance" - if all ballet is going to do is rely on past glories of Chopiniana etc it's not continuing, it's static, moving foward without going anywhere - and if people want to come because they saw Movin Out or In the Upper Room or Matthew Bourne's lastest and want to broaden their experience with another Tharp which happens to be on a mixed bill with Chopiniana or 4 Ts - that's great; you don't convert someone by bashing them over the head. And that's why bad new choreography is better or rather preferable to no new choreography - at least something's happening. The Balanchines, Ashtons, Tudors, Petits Fokines etc knew it took a hundred stinkers to make one Apollo, Symphonic Variations or Les Noces.

I think another two vital factors for ensuring longevity for contemporary dance companies are money and ballet. Graham was absolutely unique in that for the majority of her creative life she had the patronage of two hugely wealthy individuals - Bethsabee De Rothschild & Robin Howard. They ensured that her endeavours were related to an equally industrious school, that huge foreign tours could be taken and the whole amount underwritten despite the losses. At her height post retirement millions were passing through her hands every week - it was an industry. Much the same way that Cunningham is now an industry. Cunningham was lucky that his career was run alongside or rather in symbiosis with the great modernist artists of the latter half of the 20th century Rauschenberg, Johns, Mumma, Cage - he hadn't access to a fraction of the financial resources of Graham but was lucky in that his work was becoming synonymous with several vitally important comparative art forms in the American post modern movement; because let's not forget that even by the 60s for some Cunningham the anti-establishmentarian was sometimes seen as establishment especially by the Judson Church group - of course who knows or rather remembers any work by Paxton, Rainer, Judith Dunn, Debbie & Alex Hay; again Cunningham outlasted them all the only member of that group who still has a significant presence is Trisha Brown - was her work more worthy than Paxton et al? It's a question of personal taste, though of course since the majority of work from the "post post modernist's" is forgotten or stored only on dusty 8mm film - what that time stood for and the experiments in movement those artists made are lost. It's not just a question of why is Humphrey forgotten in terms of the big 3 Humphrey, Graham and Holm. There are many strands on the American modern dance movement tree where one questions how one survived over the others. Take African American contemporary dance - Katherine Dunham, Lester Horton, Talley Beatty, Rod Rogers, Alvin Ailey, Donald Mackayle, Ulysses Dove - of those only Ailey still persists in a major way - again he's an industry, and to the company's credit they perform a few works by Beatty, Dove (and on a note of total personal bias, for me Beatty and Dove are the superior choreographers) - though it came to be that Ailey was the one whose vision is seen as the apogee of the African American dance experience. Katherine Dunham who's pretty much all but forgotten was in the early 50s more venerated as a dance maker in the UK than Graham. The other major factor I truly believe is instrumental in cementing a modern choreographer's work in the wider field of dance for posterity is ballet. Bill T Jones is unique amongst the big moderns of today: Cunningham, Morris, Taylor, Ailey, Jones, in that his work hasn't entered ballet companies. He's also different from the African American choreographers as his work does not directly deal with, in the main, the experience of being black in and of itself within historical context. However, the other's work has all been performed by ballet companies from ABT to the Paris Opera (including Graham & Limon). And if anything perhaps this is a factor in why Limon persists, Humphrey doesn't within the context of the company of which she was once AD - there will always be a ballet company who wants to perform the Moor's Pavanne.

Or why doesn't one see more dances by Fuller, Holm, Weidman, Falco, Horton, Hawkins, Dennis, Shawn, Sokalow, Tamiris, Bird, De Mille, Dunn. J, Halprin, Erdman, Wigman, Joos, Leeder, Fonoroff, Nijinska, Nijinsky, Massine, Lifar (I include ballet because let's not be pedantic and some of these late greats don't even get one piece a season, anywhere), Wagoner, Lang, Duncan...? Being a legend doesn't protect a legacy, having a name is no guarantee that it will be remembered in any defining way. Humphrey was an architect of dance, her technique fluid, her approach famously clinical or perhaps restrained is a better term. But you see Day on Earth, Water Study, Pachelbel canon and for whatever reason history doesn't really want to remember it, the work is thorough and well made or course, none of it has the visceral thrill of her Shakers. It's not true either that it's only recent, she was being frozen out even during her lifetime, lagging behind Graham in the public and artistic view; Limon broke away from her, shut her out and even before her time was up she was something of an anachronism. I'm not saying those legacies aren't worth preserving. I 100% believe they areb, ut in the Millennium it's Cunningham, Morris, Jones & Taylor which have won the long race, which receive the lions share of funding, attention, touring and money. Even Graham has become more and more of a curiosity, her legend watered down and neutered - if the company wasn't attached to her legend I doubt that performances of such lacklustre quality would gather attention from the major press as they continue to do. But again in regards to Limon company 23 performances in 6/7 months, the majority of which are in universities is not a sign of a healthy company which can afford to operate at anything like a full capacity or roster full time. Humphrey is lucky to get one performace a season at all. As the list above shows, just off the top of my head, so many legends and great innovators have been forgotten altogether.

A gay male ballet dancer. Hold the front page???? Someone conjectured about Gomes' sexuality, Leigh cleared up the matter, isn't the rest that followed all a tad immature?

Lynn Garafola told a story here in San Francisco--I hope I am getting it right--she got from a dancer she interviewed. The dancer was doing some Graham technique exercises when Balanchine walked in. Balanchine was curious about them and asked where she had learned them. The dancer said in a Graham class. They apparently became the basis--at least in part--of the birthing movements done by Leto in the long version of Apollo. Quiggin, That does not sound right at all. The long version is the original version with Leto, the birth of Apollo and the ascendency up Mount Parnassus which premiered in Paris in 1928. At that stage of her development Graham was very much in New York working with a select group of young women who had no training outside of modern, dalcroze or Denishawn in her own small studio in New York and giving sporadic concerts, the majority of which were small minutaie. Balanchine was not known at that time was choreographer for the Ballets Russes and none of the ballerinas (Sophie Orlova danced Leto, BTW) or dancers had any interest in the completely unknown nascent contemporary dance, nor I dare say, would Diaghilev have allowed them to work with a total "novice" in a completely alien form, even if they had. Yes, later on once Balanchine had become established within NY and the NYCB there was a cross pollination or rather tentative borrowing and studying between Graham and ballet and Balanchine and contemporary modernism, but in 1928, no.

I actually think that there's a great deal of truth in that statement.

Miliosr, what is it that you're actually agreeing we disagree on? I actually think you'll find anything you have to say I agree with, though you think I'm saying the opposite of what I actually am. It's the Cunningham Foundation who would look at the model you present and look at the schedule, repertory and venue list of Limon as a model they don't want Cunningham to follow. If they would be content to have the company follow that model why then this campaign almost as if to convince that the World won't survive without Cunningham, or at the very least if the company doesn't perform at the present capacity. Two weeks international touring of one season to London, Paris, Madrid or Sydney bringing one or two major works and one or two shorter ones costs around about the Limon company's entire budget that you quoted for a year. That's what's at stake and what I'm talking about - I'm not talking about artistry, I'm not comparing artisitic merit/importance or debating a company's right to exist or operate in relation to another. When I debate the Cunningham Foundation in these threads I'm talking about an industry; in terms of industry I mean much as I'd talk about Merrill Lynch, General Motors, ICI, Microsoft. It's the economic stability of a great engine which just happens to have an artistic genius at its core powering it - and about finding renewable sustainable sources of fuel to continue powering the engine so that the machine performs at capacity once the artistic genius which set the engine going runs out.

As a big Limon fan, I must object to the statement above as it pertains to Limon: 1) The Limon company has survived for 63 years without ever having a hiatus due to funding problems or internal strife. 2) The Limon company has survived for 37 years since the founder's death (the first modern dance company to do so) and maintains a regular performance schedule (hardly an "occasional" company.) 3) The Limon company was never an "eponymous" company. There were two choreographers (Limon, Humphrey) and, in addition, Limon presented the work of his company members (Pauline Koner, Lucas Hoving, Ruth Currier, Louis Falco). 4) The Limon company's budget is in the $1.5-$2 million range (hardly "poorly funded".) 5) The Limon company performs in many different venues, including opera houses (not just "in University gyms.") Simon G -- If you want to argue that Merce Cunningham is a superior artist to Jose Limon, that's fine. If you want to argue that the Limon Dance Company has abdicated responsibility for maintaining the Doris Humphrey repertory, that's fine. If you want to argue that the Limon company has had trouble commissioning lasting new works in the Limon manner, that's fine. But before you get to that point, it would be nice if you demonstrated a basic understanding of what the Limon Dance Company is or is not. Milosr, I'm sorry but I think you're being a tad over-sensitive. I'm well aware of the status of Limon and the Humphrey/Weidman inflence and artistic directorship. Though it's untrue to say that Limon never underwent internal strife, it most certainly did in his growing estrangement from Humphrey and his need for independence. I'm also very much aware of his status and that of his company I was never impugning his legacy, brilliance or lasting influence. However, $1.5million is a fraction of the sum that the big 4 of Cunningham, Morris, Bill T Jones and Taylor operate on - one can argue the minutaie of this but the plain fact is that that isn't a sum capable of sustaining a full company will full reepertory, an active policy of commissioning new works, allowing for failure of those new works and keep a year round performance schedule of seasons in venues worthy of a company with that kind of legacy. The international touring of the big 4 contemporary dance companies is impossible for Limon. And I'm not rubbishing Limon or the work of the company or the dancers. In the past six months Limon as a company performed 23 times, the majority of those performances in Universities and one-off performances apart from one season of five days at the Joyce. But it is a company that relies on a dimished repertory of a few classics from a vast repertory at its disposal in order to survive. I'm NOT saying that Limon is lesser, and I do agree that an artist of such profound and enduring legacy and status should be better represented. But contemporary dance is so far down the pecking order of funded art forms. What I meant by my statement is that Cunningham seem to be building an enduring legend of a living God around Cunningham while he's still alive to try and ensure that his company has the clout of say a ballet company such as NYCB, or the RB who had founder choreographers of genius who shaped the art form - and in this I think it's a good idea in terms of funding. That's what Protas did with Graham which ensured she had another 20 years of money to create with after her retirement from dancing and before her death at 91. I very much doubt Cunningham has another 20 years though. What's obvious is that the Cunningham Foundation don't want the company to end up in the model of Limon, or operating at the level it now does. That's all I was saying nothing about Limon as a creative artist - and it's true. Limon is a name known by few, the performances of his company carrying forward his legacy are sporadic - that has nothing to do with their worth, their importance. The Foundation however obviously doesn't want Cunningham to become Limon, indeed there was a time in the 50s when Limon was considered of far greater importance than Cunningham and was a much bigger name; that's part of the "Legend" of Cunningham, he was the underdog for decades who outlasted all his competitors and achieved a level of importance and adulation greater than any of his rivals and in order to ensure that continues after his death they're creating a Superstar.

Helene, I have no doubt that you're absolutely right, that my problems with the company would be viewed as completely wrongfooted or misplaced by the administration - and that my lone (ish) voice is inconsequential to the greater good of keeping the company moving on after Cunningham's gone. I also think you're bang on, if the money dried up and Cunningham were able, say forty/fifty years ago, and wasn't in the process of being enshrined as a living deity; he'd have packed up the VW Bus with John Cage, David Tudor, Rauschenberg, his dancers and hit the road. Not concerned with being a legend, leaving a legacy but keeping his dance alive as a vital art living in the moment. Can I be brutally honest? I don't think it's such a bad thing that Farmer, Squire & Mizuta won't be dancing with the company any more because the last time I saw them a few months ago they seemed so out of place. A remnant of a much better time a much better company. The new dancers went through the motions (with a few notable exceptions Julie Cunningham) not going through the motions in a perfunctory style, they were committed to "the legend" & "the legacy" that was clear; what they weren't doing was dancing. Mizuta looked as if he was phoning his performance in or perhaps like a prize fighter who was losing in the last round but wouldn't go down however beaten up he might be; Squire just looked uncomfortable as if he was straining after something which had disappeared - he was given the unenviable task of doubling roles in the scaled down Biped & Farmer was her usual brilliant self and just looked wasted. All three were dancing in a different company. So if the Cunningham Foundation wants fresh air I say let them - though I also have to say that air is stale and rarified, the air in an hermetically sealed tomb. What I find really nauseating is this rather obvious attempt to enshrine Cunningham while he's still very much alive. Every press statement, every programme note, every attempt to record his every move and thought for posterity such as the rather pointless, albeit pretty to look at, Monday's with Merce - has the quality of eulogy; enshrining the "living God" in a gilded tomb. The industry which has sprung up within the foundation with the intention of preserving him forever just seems to be choking the life out of his work while he's still living. It's become a money concern. The work he's producing of late isn't that great either - though of course no one is prepared to say it, he's a legend, isn't he? Xover, Views on Stage, (Nearly Ninety - which I can't comment on because I haven't seen) were at best well-made dances, at worst a bit pretentious, a bit pointless, a bit like a pastiche of Cunningham. It's also why these "oh so hip and trendy" artistic collaborations are so twee and retro; would Cunningham in his VW bus have cared about star designers, rock stars, the unquestioning obsequiousness of acolytes? I don't think so, that was Martha Graham's bag; but Graham as idol has been toppled after her death and the Cunningham Foundation have stated that Cunningham will NOT follow the Graham model, even though they're kind of making a lot of identical moves that Graham's Foundation did in her final years. Those eponymous companies don't survive in anything other than a diminished capacity history has shown this time and time again - and the Foundation are obviously desperate to avoid Cunningham going the way of Graham, Limon, Humphreys, Hawkins et al poorly funded, occasional companies who perform sporadically in University gyms. The other thing that's certain is that if the company is going to continue after his death it can only be with a moneyed patronage who all want a piece of the legacy pie, who all believe fervently that they're preserving a legend. Without Cunningham there can be no new work, without new work a contemporary dance company isn't contemporary - so it's vital that the last days of the master are encased in such legend; that the work begun to preserve him is started now. A great many people's longterm jobs depend on it; apart from the dancers who are on low wages, can be replaced at any time - and like Mizuta, Farmer & Squire should be under no illusion that longevity, artistry or committing their flesh, bones, blood, minds and performing lives ultimately don't count for much should they be considered counter to that legacy. Because that's what the sackings & the press statements by Carlson do - they send out a message to the dancers that they're expendable. It's the legend & the legacy that counts, just be count yourself lucky you're along for the ride. I think that's the saddest and funniest thing about the treatment of the "Cunningham Three" as seen by the directives issued in the press by Comrade Carlson expressing the views of the Supreme Leader: they have that bizarre quality that Soviet official statements had in denouncing dissidents who had once been party members until it was discovered they were counter party, counter revolution. They've been exiled to dancers' Siberia. Ultimately though what's happening is an alienating of Cunningham's core audience - the rock stars may be exciting, the costumes by designers glitzy, but that wasn't what Cunningham was about, he was about gorgeous technique, stunning choreography and grown-up, phenomenal dancers who devoured space with absolute abandon. And those things just aren't there for me at least, anymore. I'm sure the foundation doesn't care about my opinions in the face of some lifetime achievement donation from some foundation who's on the legacy bandwagon - but I won't be buying tickets anymore and in ten years time when those donations dry up when the novelty of legacy has given way to stagnation and museum-status, it's the longterm ticket-buyers who will be missed.

Hi Kfw You just beat me to the punch, great minds.... sorry if my response to you seemed terse. I just get so p.o'd watching what's happening to a company I absolutely love: For the benefit of everyone here's a little segment from the Holley Farmer interview with Gia Kourlas: I was wondering how it feels for you to be performing these dances right now. Well, I think that I have had a very hard time dancing in front of Merce since this happened simply because I realize how vulnerable I am. Like an intimacy with someone after the relationship has broken off, it doesn’t feel safe. I’m very aware of not wanting to become distracted or injured, so in the studio I try to be focused to the point where I’m asking myself, “Okay, why am I doing this right now? I’m doing this because I’m going to be performing it soon and I need to be clear and I need to be strong when the performance comes.” So it’s the first time I’m not dancing for Merce’s eyes.