Squaregame & Split Sides/Event

Merce Cunningham

It would be impossible to understand how dance evolved during the twentieth century without acknowledging the impact of the work of Merce Cunningham. The American master, who revolutionised many of the fundamental rules of choreographic performance, died this summer leaving a considerable legacy. Three very special evening perforances which had been intended to mark the ninetieth birthday of this giant of dance will now on take on a quite different complexion. Three highlights representing choreographic markers in an exceptional career: Squaregame (1976), an invigorating moment of sheer enjoyment in which dancers make light of the constraints and the space in turn; Split Sides (2003), a piece in two movements for 13 dancers with Radiohead and Sigur Ros on the soundtrack and bearing witness to perpetual youth.

 

Squaregame

Choreography: Merce Cunningham

Music: Takehisa Kosugi (S.E. Wave/E.W. Song)

Set & costumes: Mark Lancaster

 

Split Sides

Choreography: Merce Cunningham

Music: Radiohead & Sigur Ros

Sets: Robert Heishman & Catherine Yass

Costumes: James Hall

Light: James F. Ingalls

 

Dancers: Brandon Collwes, Dylan Crossman, Julie Cunningham, Emma Desjardins, Jennifer Goggans, Daniel Madoff, Rashaun Mitchell, Marcie Munnerlyn, Silas Riener, Jamie Scott, Robert Swinston (Assistant to the Choreographer) Melissa Toogood, Andrea Weber

DATES:

12 & 13/11/09 - 21:00 (Bus Biennale)

 

TICKETS:

35/25/15 - 30/20/10 euros

 

RESERVATIONS:

070/660 413

 

Online reservations

 

VENUE:

PBA

Place du Manège, 1

6000 Charleroi

 

Robert Swinston (Assistant to the Choreographer) was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and attended Middelbury College and The Juilliard School, where he received a BFA in Dance. He danced with the Martha Graham Apprentice Company, the José Limon Dance Company, and with Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theatre. He joined MCDC in August 1980. In July 1992 he became Assistant to the Choreographer. Swinston directs the activities of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group and its work with the Cunningham Educational Outreach Program. Since 1998, Swinston has assisted in various Cunningham archival reconstructions including Suite for Five (1956-58); Summerspace (1958); How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (1965); Rain Forest (1968); CRW/DSPCR (1993); and Ocean (1994). He has assisted in the staging of Cunningham works on other companies, including Boston Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, Rambert Dance Company, and New York City Ballet. In 2003, Swinston received a "Bessie" Award for his performance in the revival of Cunningham's How to Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run.

 

Brandon Collwes received his early dance training at the Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, and the Creative and Performing Arts High School. He attended The Juilliard School and SUNY Purchase. Collwes studied as a scholarship student at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance and twice at American Dance Festival. He became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in October 2003 and joined MCDC in January 2006. Collwes has choreographed and performed his own work Intentional Happenstance, which will tour in the coming months.

 

Dylan Crossman grew up in the south of France where he started training at the Conservatory of Montpellier in contemporary dance. Crossman has trained at Epsedancse, Burklyn Ballet Theatre (VT), and graduated from the Laban Center in London. In New York, he has worked with Sean Curran, Peter Kyle, Pam Tanowitz and Christopher Williams. Dylan joined the Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group in June 2007. He would like to thank everyone who helped and supported him along the way.

Crossman joined MCDC in June 2009.

 

Julie Cunningham is from Liverpool, England and trained with Elizabeth Hill and at Rambert School. Cunningham has worked with Ballet der Stadt Theater Koblenz, Germany. In March 2003 Cunningham became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group. Cunningham has worked and performed with Chantal Ysermans, Abi Sebaly and Anne Carson in New York. Cunningham joined MCDC in July 2004.

 

Emma Desjardins grew up and began training in Providence, RI. She graduated from Barnard College/Columbia University in 2003 where she trained and performed with its Dance Department. Desjardins began dancing at the Merce Cunningham Studio in 2002, became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in 2004, and joined MCDC in January 2006.

 

Jennifer Goggans began dancing in her hometown of Owensboro, KY, and continued her studies at the Nutmeg Ballet in Connecticut. She received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase in 2000, and joined MCDC that same year. Goggans has been a faculty member of the Merce Cunningham Studio since 2005 and has staged Cunningham's Cross Currents for the Augusta Ballet. Goggans has also performed with the Louisville Ballet, MOMIX, Chantal Yzermans, and Christopher Williams, and has created costumes for Daniel Squire's (Sic) and Rose Anne Spradlin's Survive Cycle.

 

Daniel Madoff received his BFA in Dance from Purchase College in June 2006. He has danced for Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theatre, Nelly van Bommel, Lauri Stallings, and Pam Tanowitz. He became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in January 2005 and joined MCDC in August 2007.

 

Rashaun Mitchell was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He started dancing at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2000. He received the Viola Farber-Slayton Memorial Grant from the Foudation for Contemporary Performance Arts in 2000. Since then he has danced with Pam Tanowitz, Chantal Yzermans, Donna Uchizono, Risa Jaroslow, Sara Rudner and Richard Colton. He joined MCDC in January 2004 and is currently on faculty at the Cunningham Studio. In 2007 he was the recipient of a Princess Grace Award: Dance Fellowship. He presented his own choreography in collaboration with writer Anne Carson at the Skirball Center in December of 2008, and recently performed with Pam Tanowitz.

 

Marcie Munnerlyn is from Portland, OR. She trained at Jefferson High School, Oregon Ballet Theater, and the Cornish College of the Arts. She became a member of CDF Repertory Understudy Group in June 2002 and joined MCDC in January 2004.

 

Silas Riener grew up in Washington DC. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Comparative Literature. There he began studying dance with Ze'eva Cohen and Rebecca Lazier, and performed works by James Waring, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Leonide Massine, as restaged by Millicent Hodson. He has also worked with Takehiro Ueyama, Christopher Williams, Jonah Bokaer, and Rebecca Lazier. While performing with MCDC, Riener completed his MFA in Dance at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He joined MCDC in November 2007.

 

Jamie Scott began studying dance in her hometown of Great Falls, Virginia. She continued training in the pre-professional division of the Washington School of Ballet and Moved to New York in 2001 to attend Barnard College. After graduating cum laude from Barnard in May of 2005, she began her studies at the Merce Cunningham Studio. She joined the Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group in January 2007 and Merce Cunningham Dance Company in July 2009. Jamie is currently on faculty at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio. She also dances with the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company.

 

Melissa Toogood is a native of Sydney, Australia. She has worked with Miro Dance Theatre, Freddick Bratcher & Co., was a founding member of Michael Uthoff Dance Theatre, and continues to do projects with Pam Tanowitz Dance. She became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in November 2005 and joined MCDC in May 2008. She received a BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts in Miami. She is currently on faculty at the Merce Cunningham Studio.

 

Andrea Weber graduated with a BFA from the Juilliard School, under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy. Andrea has danced and taught for Canadian based Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, participating in the Manitoba Project in August 2007 and in the Gros Mourne Project in July 2006. In November 2006, Weber danced an excerpt from Jessica Lang's Splendind Isolation II for Kanji Segawa's Dance Project New York. She has assisted and staged Lila York's works on ballet companies throughout the United States and in Denmark. Weber was a collaborator in Anne Carson's Possessive Used As Drink (Me). In 2008, Weber performed in Stacks, a collaboration between Carson, Jonah Bokaer and Peter Cole. She has also worked with Charlotte Griffin, Sue Bernhard and Ellen Cornfield. Weber joined MCDC in January 2004 and is currently a faculty member of the Merce Cunningham Studio.

Concerning Split Sides :

 

As is typical of Cunningham's work, the dancing always looked new and unexpected. Varied from moment to moment, it ran the gamut from solemnity to whimsy to sheer mass exhilaration... Chalk up one more triumph for Cunningham.

 

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 16 October 2003

 

The dance... came at us with an onslaught of interesting movement... The big and small groups, couples, and solos gave us a wonderfully diverse look at the company... The movement invention was lavish and astonishing.

 

Marcia B. Siegel, The Boston Phoenix, 24 October 2003

 

Like the best of Cunningham's work, Split Sides inspires us to become inventive collaborators in its poetry.

 

Judith Mackrell, The Guardian (London), 6 October 2004

 

The magic of this clever enterprise, and the measure of its resounding success, is that although there are 32 possible performing combinations the one we saw...looked as if it was meant to be. The two stage pictures...were stunningly apt companions, while the scores, with their shared sense of technical adventure, seemed perfectly attuned to Cunningham's computer-assisted choreography... The only impulse that drives Cunningham's creativity is his endless fascination with movement, the permutations and computations of the highly developed body, its elongations and random energies, its shifting speeds and shimmering dynamics, but Split Sides shows how important the setting (musical and visual) can be in appreciating the dance.

 

Debra Craine, The Times (London), 7 October 2004

 

Concerning Squaregame :

 

It's friendly, zany, casual game these dancers play at, or are they the playing pieces?...Squaregame is a wonderful game and very unsquare. Its fits and starts, its in-play and benched players all have a light-hearted good-sport logic alongside a maniacal grand plan of action and non-action.

 

Robert Greskovic, Soho Weekly News, 27 January 1977

 

Squaregame is frank and lively, and I suspect it's built on some rather strict form involving paths, sequence, movement, and who works with whom.

 

Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice, 7 February 1977

 

Squaregame has the most beautiful of theatrical-natural sets - the stage bared to the brick wall, with wings exposed, and the whole area flooded with white light. A white floor cloth flanked by moss-green borders and stacks of white duffelbags are Mark Lancaster's décor. Buffalo leaps, contractions, backward scuttling runs are the choreography's motifs. There are two outstanding moments in Squaregame - one a Cunningham solo with extremely precise movements of the arms and torso..., and the other a duet which he supports...Karole Armitage in some buttery slow falls and then shadows her in an undulant walk on half-toe.

 

Arlene Croce, The New Yorker, 7 February 1977