Doug wrote:
> Cunningham supposedly uses "chance" too, but it's said that he's sometimes
> selective about taking the dice's advice.
Here's a quote from Cunnigham's short essay "The Impermanent Art":
"It has been a growing interest in 'each thing-ness' that has led me to
the use of chance methods in finding dance continuity. In my case, and for
one particular work, this involved an elaborate use of charts from which
came the particular movements, the rhythm (that is, the division and the
duration of the time they were done in), and the space they appear in
and how they divide it. There were separate charts for each of the three
elements -- movement, time, and space. Then I tossed pennies to select
a movement from the movement chart, and this was followed by tossing
pennies to find the duration of that particular movement, and following that
the space and direction of the movement were tossed for. This 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 geometric
than the lines of a mountain are, seen from an airplane; 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".
-m
> Cunningham supposedly uses "chance" too, but it's said that he's sometimes
> selective about taking the dice's advice.
Here's a quote from Cunnigham's short essay "The Impermanent Art":
"It has been a growing interest in 'each thing-ness' that has led me to
the use of chance methods in finding dance continuity. In my case, and for
one particular work, this involved an elaborate use of charts from which
came the particular movements, the rhythm (that is, the division and the
duration of the time they were done in), and the space they appear in
and how they divide it. There were separate charts for each of the three
elements -- movement, time, and space. Then I tossed pennies to select
a movement from the movement chart, and this was followed by tossing
pennies to find the duration of that particular movement, and following that
the space and direction of the movement were tossed for. This 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 geometric
than the lines of a mountain are, seen from an airplane; 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".
-m