Cunningham first became involved with An Alphabet at the University of California where director Laura Kuhn had organised an informal reading of the work: ‘Laura asked me ifI would take part and I said. “Oh yes. It’s one of John [Cage’s] pieces so of course I will." Then when she asked me to read the part of Erik Satie I said. “Oh I’d love that" — not knowing what I was getting into.’
Audience reactions to this reading were so positive that Kuhn resolved to develop it into a full-blown production and persuaded many of the original readers to come on board. Cunningham himself is i humbled by the role. JOh '1
‘We have to learn lines and I haven't done that since I was in theatre school,’ he says. ‘It’s very difficult. John [Cage] translated the Satie and it is very funny. It’s hard to keep a straight face. And I want to do it exactly as it is meant to be done. I don't want to displace a word because of Satie’s original words and the way John has translated them. I'm having a struggle. But I'm fighting. I have put my lines onto my G4 and I try to read them every single day.‘
His busy schedule clearly tires him. So why take on such a challenge? ‘Merce loves to be on stage even if it’s only to take a bow,’ says David Vaughan. who ‘plays' Duchamp in the show. ‘I think he's really enjoying doing Alphabet because he's performing in a way he hasn't for a very long time. And of course he's still a very charismatic figure on stage.‘
But surely a frustrated one? This is after all. the once-great dancer (as a young man he danced with the Martha Graham company and was famous for his elastic leap) who insisted on making brief stage appearances with his own company until his late 70s with his arthritis already well advanced (a sight which
keep a
translated the Satie and it is very funny. he It’s hard to
straight face’
was admittedly quite painful to watch).
‘I'm sure he does miss it.” says Vaughan. ‘But he moves vicariously through his dancers now. He never stops making dances and I think he is fulfilled by seeing them come to life through the bodies of the young dancers.‘
And whatever his motivation for getting up on stage. Cunningham is a man of such magnetism that many would show up to watch him drink a cup of tea. Not that he would ever do anything so dull with his time. At 82 he is still prickling sensibilities. He is no longer so gut-wrenchingly modem that audiences boo his work and call him the devil in dance shoes. But only last year he found himself accused of dehumanising dance when took his love of technology to extremes by mixing live bodies with computer-generated choreography in the work Biped (2000).
He remains sanguine. ‘When somebody put on the first pointe shoe centuries ago I'm sure they said that was dehumanising dance. But they soon got over that.‘
Later that evening as I watch the ecstatic Berlioz audience carry Andy Warhol‘s pillows like trophies into the balmy Montpellier night I can‘t help thinking this is the type of adulation normally reserved for rock stars. not choreographers. It‘s partly a French thing. And it's partly a Cunningham thing. He triggers a strong emotional response.
But devil or deity. he manages to shrug ofi" his importance in the dance hall of fame: ‘I didn’t necessarily do anything for the dance world at all. I just did it for me. I like dancing you see.’
Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, Erik Satie: An Alphabet (EIF), Royal Lyceum Theatre, 30 Aug-1 Sep, 7.30pm.
Sound & vision
The International Festival is bringing the work of three composers to the stage. Words: Kenny Matthleson
Carlos Santos: Rlcardo l Elena Santos is a Catalan composer based in Barcelona, whose work is both flamboyant and iconoclastic. Its surreal imagery and overt eroticism has proved too strong for some in its earlier manifestations in the Festival, but has left a lasting impression. In La Pantera Imperial, his homage to J.S. Bach. Santos cited the German composer as being ‘a kind of musical father’ to him, but his distinctive vision and contemporary sound is far removed from Bach's elegant classicism. Ricardo i Elena apparently reflects his own birth and development as a musical prodigy. but he prefers to see it as a portrait of Spain in the 503. King’s Theatre, 21-23 Aug, 8pm.
John Cage: An Alphabet
Cage achieved notoriety with his infamous 4’ 33", a work which instructs the performer(s) to be silent for the prescribed time. The music is whatever ambient noise is audible, and it reflects not only his mischievous humour, but also his deeply-rooted belief that music is not so much created as released into being. Cage heard music where others perceived only noise, but his musical output is more varied (and often oddly beautiful) than the caricature image of him would allow. He wrote a great deal of chamber and orchestral music, often for unusual combinations of instruments, as well as music for theatre and dance. Royal Lyceum, 30 Aug-1 Sep, 7. 30pm.
Helner Goebbels: Hashlrlgakl Goebbels acknowledges Hans Eisler as his
primary musical influence, but his work has always reflected a genuinely open-minded. eclectic awareness of many musical traditions. including rock, jazz and free improvisation. While he has composed a great deal of chamber music and large-scale orchestral compositions like the massive Surrogate Cities (1994), much of his best work has been written in various hybrid forms of music theatre. Hashirigaki, which draws on the elusive work of modernist writer Gertrude Stein. will extend those theatrical elements in more full- blown fashion than its predecessors at the Festival, Black and White (1997) and Eislermateria/ (1999). King's Theatre, 25 & 26 Aug, 7. 30pm.
16—22 Aug 2001 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 15