Paul Taylor Dance Company is a modern dance company , formed by dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor (1930—2018). The modern dance company is based in New York, New York and was founded in 1954.
132-446: Taylor originally performed in the companies of Merce Cunningham , Martha Graham , and George Balanchine , and founded his own in 1954. Dancers and choreographers who have emerged from his company include Twyla Tharp , Pina Bausch , David Parsons , Laura Dean , Bettie de Jong, Dan Wagoner, Carolyn Adams, Elizabeth Keen, Christopher Gillis , Senta Driver, Amy Marshall, Lila York , Patrick Corbin , and Takehiro Ueyama. Michael Novak
264-552: A Guggenheim Fellowship . After a 1949 performance at Carnegie Hall , New York, Cage received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation , which enabled him to make a trip to Europe, where he met composers such as Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez . More important was Cage's chance encounter with Morton Feldman in New York City in early 1950. Both composers attended a New York Philharmonic concert, where
396-489: A European tour. From 1956 to 1961 Cage taught classes in experimental composition at The New School, and from 1956 to 1958 he also worked as an art director and designer of typography. Among his works completed during the last years of the decade were Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58), a seminal work in the history of graphic notation , and Variations I (1958). Cage was affiliated with Wesleyan University and collaborated with members of its music department from
528-403: A collection of Cage's lectures and writings on a wide variety of subjects, including the famous Lecture on Nothing that was composed using a complex time length scheme, much like some of Cage's music. Silence was Cage's first book of six but it remains his most widely read and influential. In the early 1960s Cage began his lifelong association with C.F. Peters Corporation . Walter Hinrichsen,
660-406: A composer. The vow Cage gave, to dedicate his life to music, was apparently still important some 40 years later, when Cage "had no need for it [i.e. writing music]", he continued composing partly because of the promise he gave. Schoenberg's methods and their influence on Cage are well documented by Cage himself in various lectures and writings. Particularly well-known is the conversation mentioned in
792-464: A computer algorithm that calculated numbers in a manner similar to throwing coins for the I Ching . Despite the fame Sonatas and Interludes earned him, and the connections he cultivated with American and European composers and musicians, Cage was quite poor. Although he still had an apartment at 326 Monroe Street (which he occupied since around 1946), his financial situation in 1951 worsened so much that while working on Music of Changes , he prepared
924-456: A copy of the I Ching —a Chinese classic text which describes a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. This version of the I Ching was the first complete English translation and had been published by Wolff's father, Kurt Wolff of Pantheon Books in 1950. The I Ching is commonly used for divination , but for Cage it became a tool to compose using chance. To compose a piece of music, Cage would come up with questions to ask
1056-432: A diesel-fueled submarine that gave off exhaust bubbles, the senior Cage being uninterested in an undetectable submarine; others revolutionary and against the scientific norms, such as the "electrostatic field theory" of the universe. John Cage Sr. taught his son that "if someone says 'can't' that shows you what to do." In 1944–45 Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents: Crete and Dad . The latter
1188-492: A job washing walls at a YWCA (World Young Women's Christian Association) in Brooklyn . Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4 am. Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg. He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it,
1320-543: A journalist for the Los Angeles Times . The family's roots were deeply American: in a 1976 interview, Cage mentioned that George Washington was assisted by an ancestor named John Cage in the task of surveying the Colony of Virginia . Cage described his mother as a woman with "a sense of society" who was "never happy", while his father is perhaps best characterized by his inventions: sometimes idealistic, such as
1452-486: A large space who were all to commence and stop playing at two particular time periods, with instructions on when to play individually or in groups within these two periods. The result was a mass superimposition of many different musics on top of one another as determined by chance distribution, producing an event with a specifically theatric feel. Many Musicircuses have subsequently been held, and continue to occur even after Cage's death. The English National Opera (ENO) became
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#17327827812601584-612: A living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, such as Richard Buhlig (who became his first composition teacher) and arts patron Galka Scheyer . By 1933, Cage decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained. In 1933 he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell;
1716-456: A major change in Cage's music: he turned again to writing fully notated works for traditional instruments, and tried out several new approaches, such as improvisation , which he previously discouraged, but was able to use in works from the 1970s, such as Child of Tree (1975). Cheap Imitation became the last work Cage performed in public himself. Arthritis had troubled Cage since 1960, and by
1848-461: A new program, called Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, in which works of modern dance by choreographers other than Taylor are included in the company's annual season at the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center . Paul Taylor Dance Company's annual New York seasons have been presented at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater since 2012. Prior to that, beginning in 1977, New York City Center hosted
1980-433: A part of these performances refused to participate, citing the impossibility of the requests Cage was making. Days before Europas 1 & 2 were to be premiered, Frankfurt's opera house burned down, setting into motion a series of setbacks leading to a theatrical run met with mixed reactions, including a performance so bad that Cage penned a letter to his musicians criticizing their interpretation of his composition. In
2112-401: A particular sound—what did the I Ching suggest? Well, I took this also for dance . I was working on a title called, "Untitled Solo", and I had made—using the chance operations—a series of movements written on scraps of paper for the legs and the arms, the head, all different. And it was done not to the music but with the music of Christian Wolff . Cunningham valued the process of a work over
2244-444: A personal work, one in which the composer is present. When asked about this apparent contradiction, Cage replied: "Obviously, Cheap Imitation lies outside of what may seem necessary in my work in general, and that's disturbing. I'm the first to be disturbed by it." Cage's fondness for the piece resulted in a recording—a rare occurrence, since Cage disliked making recordings of his music—made in 1976. Overall, Cheap Imitation marked
2376-428: A pile of second-hand clothes picked out by the designer, Robert Rauschenberg . Rauschenberg was also responsible for creating a new set for every show with items he found in the theatre. Suite by Chance (1953) was his first work made entirely through chance procedures. Charts were created listing elements such as space, time, and positions. A coin was then tossed to determine each of these elements. Canfield (1969)
2508-472: A potted history of canonical classics, with 52 tapes of computer-generated sounds, 6,400 slides of designs, many supplied by NASA , and shown from sixty-four slide projectors, with 40 motion-picture films. The piece was initially rendered in a five-hour performance at the University of Illinois in 1969, in which the audience arrived after the piece had begun and left before it ended, wandering freely around
2640-598: A profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance. As a choreographer, teacher, and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Cunningham had a profound influence on modern dance . Many dancers who trained with Cunningham formed their own companies. They include Paul Taylor , Remy Charlip , Viola Farber , Charles Moulton , Karole Armitage , Deborah Hay , Robert Kovich, Foofwa d'Imobilité , Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah , Jan Van Dyke , Jonah Bokaer , and Alice Reyes . In 2009,
2772-460: A set of instructions for Tudor as to how to complete the piece in the event of his death. Nevertheless, Cage managed to survive and maintained an active artistic life, giving lectures and performances, etc. In 1952–1953 he completed another mammoth project—the Williams Mix , a piece of tape music , which Earle Brown and Morton Feldman helped to put together. Also in 1952, Cage composed
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#17327827812602904-650: A shared interest in percussion and dance and would likely hit it off if introduced to one another. Indeed, the two immediately established a strong bond upon meeting and began a working relationship that continued for several years. Harrison soon helped Cage to secure a faculty member position at Mills College , teaching the same program as at UCLA, and collaborating with choreographer Marian van Tuyl . Several famous dance groups were present, and Cage's interest in modern dance grew further. After several months he left and moved to Seattle , Washington, where he found work as composer and accompanist for choreographer Bonnie Bird at
3036-1000: A single sentence: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action", and in the first performance the disciplined action was Cage writing that sentence. The score of Variations III (1962) abounds in instructions to the performers, but makes no references to music, musical instruments, or sounds. Many of the Variations and other 1960s pieces were in fact " happenings ", an art form established by Cage and his students in late 1950s. Cage's "Experimental Composition" classes at The New School have become legendary as an American source of Fluxus , an international network of artists, composers, and designers. The majority of his students had little or no background in music. Most were artists. They included Jackson Mac Low , Allan Kaprow , Al Hansen , George Brecht , Ben Patterson , and Dick Higgins , as well as many others Cage invited unofficially. Famous pieces that resulted from
3168-795: A soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company for six years. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer John Cage , who became his lifelong romantic partner and frequent collaborator until Cage's death in 1992. In the summer of 1953, as a teacher in residence at Black Mountain College , Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Throughout his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 200 dances and over 800 Events , or site-specific choreographic works. In 1963 he joined with Cage to create
3300-525: A song for voice and closed piano, in which two sets of proportions are used simultaneously. In late 1940s, Cage started developing further methods of breaking away with traditional harmony. For instance, in String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) Cage first composed a number of gamuts : chords with fixed instrumentation. The piece progresses from one gamut to another. In each instance the gamut
3432-478: A substantial body of works for performances by various choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, who had moved to New York City several years earlier. Cage and Cunningham eventually became romantically involved, and Cage's marriage, already breaking up during the early 1940s, ended in divorce in 1945. Cunningham remained Cage's partner for the rest of his life. Cage also countered the lack of percussion instruments by writing, on one occasion, for voice and closed piano:
3564-490: A technique that placed the rhythmic structure of the piece into the foreground. In Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939) there are four large sections of 16, 17, 18, and 19 bars, and each section is divided into four subsections, the first three of which were all 5 bars long. First Construction (in Metal) (1939) expands on the concept: there are five sections of 4, 3, 2, 3, and 4 units respectively. Each unit contains 16 bars, and
3696-431: A three-screen animation that was commissioned by and premiered at SIGGRAPH in 1998. This led to a live dance for the stage, BIPED , for which Kaiser and Eshkar provided the projected decor. In 2008, Cunningham released his Loops choreography for the hands as motion-capture data under a Creative Commons license; this was the basis for the open-source collaboration of the same name with The OpenEnded Group . Cunningham
3828-541: Is a charitable, not-for-profit organization managed by a board of trustees and a board of advisors, with board co-chairs Dr. Nancy H Coles, and Robert Aberlin, and vice-chairs Richard E. Feldman, Esq, Douglas L. Peterson , Stephen Kroll Reidy, treasurer Joseph A. Smith, and secretary Elise Jaffe. 40°42′50.12″N 73°58′49.84″W / 40.7139222°N 73.9805111°W / 40.7139222; -73.9805111 Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip " Merce " Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009)
3960-623: Is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while "Crete" is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work. Cage's first experiences with music were from private piano teachers in the Greater Los Angeles area and several relatives, particularly his aunt Phoebe Harvey James who introduced him to the piano music of the 19th century. He received first piano lessons when he was in the fourth grade at school, but although he liked music, he expressed more interest in sight reading than in developing virtuoso piano technique, and apparently
4092-484: Is divided the same way: 4 bars, 3 bars, 2 bars, etc. Finally, the musical content of the piece is based on sixteen motives. Such "nested proportions", as Cage called them, became a regular feature of his music throughout the 1940s. The technique was elevated to great complexity in later pieces such as Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano (1946–48), in which many proportions used non-integer numbers (1¼, ¾, 1¼, ¾, 1½, and 1½ for Sonata I , for example), or A Flower ,
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4224-465: Is not only the fire he has set aside for so long—the fire of passion—but also fire as transitoriness and fragility." On August 11, 1992, while preparing evening tea for himself and Cunningham, Cage had another stroke. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, where he died on the morning of August 12. He was 79. According to his wishes, Cage's body was cremated and his ashes scattered in
4356-608: The Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, headed by Nellie Cornish , from 1937 to 1939 to study acting, but found drama's reliance on text and miming too limiting and concrete. Cunningham preferred the ambiguous nature of dance, which gave him an outlet for exploration of movement. During this time, Martha Graham saw Cunningham dance and invited him to join her company. In 1939, Cunningham moved to New York City and danced as
4488-490: The Cornish College of the Arts . The Cornish School years proved to be a particularly important period in Cage's life. Aside from teaching and working as accompanist, Cage organized a percussion ensemble that toured the West Coast and brought the composer his first fame. His reputation was enhanced further with the invention of the prepared piano—a piano which has had its sound altered by objects placed on, beneath or between
4620-408: The I Ching was far from simple randomization. The procedures varied from composition to composition, and were usually complex. For example, in the case of Cheap Imitation , the exact questions asked to the I Ching were these: In another example of late music by Cage, Etudes Australes , the compositional procedure involved placing a transparent strip on the star chart, identifying the pitches from
4752-466: The I Ching ; the book would then be used in much the same way as it is used for divination. For Cage, this meant "imitating nature in its manner of operation". His lifelong interest in sound itself culminated in an approach that yielded works in which sounds were free from the composer's will: When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic,
4884-452: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) , Guggenheim withdrew all support, and, even after the ultimately successful MoMA concert, Cage was left homeless, unemployed and penniless. The commissions he hoped for did not happen. He and Xenia spent the summer of 1942 with dancer Jean Erdman and her husband Joseph Campbell . Without the percussion instruments, Cage again turned to prepared piano, producing
5016-775: The Ramapo Mountains , near Stony Point , New York, at the same place where he had scattered the ashes of his parents. The composer's death occurred only weeks before a celebration of his 80th birthday organized in Frankfurt by composer Walter Zimmermann and musicologist Stefan Schaedler. The event went ahead as planned, including a performance of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra by David Tudor and Ensemble Modern . Merce Cunningham died of natural causes in July 2009. Cage's first completed pieces have been lost. According to
5148-508: The University of Chicago . At one point, his reputation as percussion composer landed him a commission from the Columbia Broadcasting System to compose a soundtrack for a radio play by Kenneth Patchen . The result, The City Wears a Slouch Hat , was received well, and Cage deduced that more important commissions would follow. Hoping to find these, he left Chicago for New York City in the spring of 1942. In New York,
5280-786: The Walker Art Center 's first performance, instigating what would be a 25-year collaborative relationship with the Walker. In his performances, he often used the I Ching to determine the sequence of his dances and, often, dancers were not informed of the order until the night of the performance. In addition to his role as choreographer, Cunningham performed as a dancer in his company into the early 1990s. In 1968 Cunningham published his book Changes: Notes on Choreography , edited by Francis Starr, containing various sketches of his choreography. A mural, located in Washington Hall on
5412-594: The 1950s until his death in 1992. At the university, the philosopher, poet, and professor of classics Norman O. Brown befriended Cage, an association that proved fruitful to both. In 1960 the composer was appointed a fellow on the faculty of the Center for Advanced Studies (now the Center for Humanities) in the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wesleyan, where he started teaching classes in experimental music. In October 1961, Wesleyan University Press published Silence ,
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5544-560: The 1958 lecture Indeterminacy : After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall." Cage studied with Schoenberg for two years, but although he admired his teacher, he decided to leave after Schoenberg told
5676-588: The Cages first stayed with painter Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim . Through them, Cage met important artists such as Piet Mondrian , André Breton , Jackson Pollock , and Marcel Duchamp , and many others. Guggenheim was very supportive: the Cages could stay with her and Ernst for any length of time, and she offered to organize a concert of Cage's music at the opening of her gallery, which included paying for transportation of Cage's percussion instruments from Chicago. After she learned that Cage secured another concert, at
5808-675: The Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan, a plan for the continuation of Cunningham's work and the celebration and preservation of his artistic legacy. Cunningham earned some of the highest honours bestowed in the arts, including the National Medal of Arts and the MacArthur Fellowship . He also received Japan's Praemium Imperiale and a British Laurence Olivier Award , and
5940-674: The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was held March 15, 2012, in Cunningham's studio at the top of the Westbeth building in the West Village. There have been numerous exhibitions dedicated to Cunningham's work. Also, his visual art was represented by Margarete Roeder Gallery until her death on December 11, 2023. The major exhibition Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators at the New York Public Library for
6072-798: The Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007. Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge , an exhibition of recent design for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007. A trio of exhibitions devoted to John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Merce Cunningham, curated by Ron Bishop, was shown in the spring of 2002 at the Gallery of Fine Art, Edison College, Fort Myers, Florida. A major exhibition about Cunningham and his collaborations, curated by Germano Celant,
6204-870: The United States. They first performed in Europe in 1960 and since have toured in Central and South America, throughout North America, in India, China, Korea, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Africa, the Middle East, the Baltics, and Russia. Twyla Tharp joined Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1963 and two years later formed her own company. Carolyn Adams joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1965. During Adams's seventeen-year career with
6336-471: The University of California, Los Angeles. He produced music for choreographies and at one point taught a course on "Musical Accompaniments for Rhythmic Expression" at UCLA, with his aunt Phoebe. It was during that time that Cage first started experimenting with unorthodox instruments, such as household items, metal sheets, and so on. This was inspired by Oskar Fischinger , who told Cage that "everything in
6468-420: The accidentals, clefs, and playing techniques. A whole series of works was created by applying chance operations, i.e. the I Ching , to star charts : Atlas Eclipticalis (1961–62), and a series of etudes: Etudes Australes (1974–75), Freeman Etudes (1977–90), and Etudes Boreales (1978). Cage's etudes are all extremely difficult to perform, a characteristic dictated by Cage's social and political views:
6600-597: The approach he used to create décor for several MCDC's early works, served as the company's resident designer from 1954 through 1964. Jasper Johns followed as Artistic Advisor from 1967 until 1980, and Mark Lancaster from 1980 through 1984. The last Advisors to be appointed were William Anastasi and Dove Bradshaw in 1984. Other artists who have collaborated with MCDC include Daniel Arsham , Tacita Dean , Liz Phillips , Rei Kawakubo , Roy Lichtenstein , Bruce Nauman , Ernesto Neto , Frank Stella , Benedetta Tagliabue , and Andy Warhol . John Cage and I became interested in
6732-524: The assembled students that he was trying to make it impossible for them to write music. Much later, Cage recounted the incident: "... When he said that, I revolted, not against him, but against what he had said. I determined then and there, more than ever before, to write music." Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, in a later interview, where he initially said that none of his American pupils were interesting, he further stated in reference to Cage: "There
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#17327827812606864-410: The auditorium in the time for which they were there. Also in 1969, Cage produced the first fully notated work in years: Cheap Imitation for piano. The piece is a chance-controlled reworking of Erik Satie 's Socrate , and, as both listeners and Cage himself noted, openly sympathetic to its source. Although Cage's affection for Satie's music was well-known, it was highly unusual for him to compose
6996-484: The boundaries of "putting on a show", the removal of centre stage is an example of this—without a focal point for the audience, no one dancer or step holds the most value and can be seen as arbitrary ... or not. The Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan (LLP) in June 2009. The Plan provided a roadmap for the future of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, as envisioned by Cunningham. The first of its kind in
7128-617: The campus of Centralia College , was created in honor of Cunningham. Cunningham continued to live in New York City and lead his dance company as Artistic Director until his death. He presented his last work, a new work, Nearly Ninety , in April 2009, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music , New York, to mark his 90th birthday. Later that year he died in his home at the age of 90. Cunningham formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) at Black Mountain College in 1953. Guided by its leader's radical approach to space, time and technology,
7260-462: The chart, transferring them to paper, then asking the I Ching which of these pitches were to remain single, and which should become parts of aggregates (chords), and the aggregates were selected from a table of some 550 possible aggregates, compiled beforehand. Finally, some of Cage's works, particularly those completed during the 1960s, feature instructions to the performer, rather than fully notated music. The score of Variations I (1958) presents
7392-426: The classes include George Brecht's Time Table Music and Al Hansen's Alice Denham in 48 Seconds . As set forth by Cage, happenings were theatrical events that abandon the traditional concept of stage-audience and occur without a sense of definite duration. Instead, they are left to chance. They have a minimal script, with no plot. In fact, a "happening" is so-named because it occurs in the present, attempting to arrest
7524-521: The company has forged a distinctive style, reflecting Cunningham's technique and illuminating the near limitless possibility for human movement. The original company included dancers Carolyn Brown , Viola Farber , Marianne Preger-Simon , Paul Taylor , and Remy Charlip , and musicians John Cage and David Tudor . In 1964 the Cunningham Dance Foundation was established to support his work. MCDC made its first international tour in 1964, visiting Europe and Asia. From 1971 until its dissolution in 2012,
7656-688: The company was based in the Westbeth Artists Community in the West Village ; for a time Cunningham himself lived a block away at 107 Bank Street , with John Cage. On July 20, 1999, Merce Cunningham and Mikhail Baryshnikov performed together at the New York State Theater for Cunningham's 80th birthday. In its later years, the company had a two-year residency at Dia:Beacon , where MCDC performed Events , Cunningham's site-specific choreographic collages, in
7788-751: The company's seasons, which have typically lasted up to three weeks, comprising as many as 20 dances in a single season. Taylor created numerous formal dances, often to classical music, with complex patterning and intricate formations with tempos varying with the musical sections, from andante to allegro. Examples include Esplanade , Brandenburgs , Mercuric Tidings , Aureole , Arden Court , and Promethean Fire . Taylor has made many dramatic works. A few listed here include Big Bertha , From Sea to Shining Sea , American Genesis , The Word , Speaking in Tongues , Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal), Last Look , Black Tuesday , and To Make Crops Grow . The company
7920-517: The company, she starred in several major productions including Orbs in 1966, Big Bertha in 1971; Aureole and Esplanade in 1975; and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal) in 1980. Christopher Gillis joined in 1976. He was a member until his death in 1993. Bettie de Jong joined the Taylor Company in 1962. Noted for her strong stage presence and long line, she was Paul Taylor's favorite dancing partner and, as current Rehearsal Director,
8052-425: The composer's part–requiring two full-time assistants and two computers humming day and night." These pieces caused quite a stir in the world of opera at the time with their unconventional methods for staging and sequencing. Many standard pieces of operatic repertoire were used, but not in any preset order; rather, they were selected by chance, meaning no two performances were exactly alike. Many of those who were to be
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#17327827812608184-501: The composer, the earliest works were very short pieces for piano, composed using complex mathematical procedures and lacking in "sensual appeal and expressive power." Cage then started producing pieces by improvising and writing down the results, until Richard Buhlig stressed to him the importance of structure. Most works from the early 1930s, such as Sonata for Clarinet (1933) and Composition for 3 Voices (1934), are highly chromatic and betray Cage's interest in counterpoint . Around
8316-514: The concept of passing time. Cage believed that theater was the closest route to integrating art and real life. The term "happenings" was coined by Allan Kaprow, one of his students, who defined it as a genre in the late fifties. Cage met Kaprow while on a mushroom hunt with George Segal and invited him to join his class. In following these developments Cage was strongly influenced by Antonin Artaud 's seminal treatise The Theatre and Its Double , and
8448-498: The course of the 1980s, Cage's health worsened progressively. He suffered not only from arthritis, but also from sciatica and arteriosclerosis . He had a stroke that left the movement of his left leg restricted, and, in 1985, broke an arm. During this time, Cage pursued a macrobiotic diet . Nevertheless, ever since arthritis started plaguing him, the composer was aware of his age, and, as biographer David Revill observed, "the fire which he began to incorporate in his visual work in 1985
8580-467: The dance world, the plan represented Cunningham's vision for continuing his work in the upcoming years, transitioning his company once he was no longer able to lead it, and preserving his oeuvre. The Legacy Plan included a comprehensive digital documentation and preservation program, which ensures that pieces from his repertory can be studied, performed and enjoyed by future generations with knowledge of how they originally came to life. By other provisions of
8712-565: The difficulty would ensure that "a performance would show that the impossible is not impossible" —this being Cage's answer to the notion that solving the world's political and social problems is impossible. Cage described himself as an anarchist, and was influenced by Henry David Thoreau . Another series of works applied chance procedures to pre-existing music by other composers: Cheap Imitation (1969; based on Erik Satie), Some of "The Harmony of Maine" (1978; based on Belcher ), and Hymns and Variations (1979). In these works, Cage would borrow
8844-483: The early 1970s his hands were painfully swollen and rendered him unable to perform. Nevertheless, he still played Cheap Imitation during the 1970s, before finally having to give up performing. Preparing manuscripts also became difficult: before, published versions of pieces were done in Cage's calligraphic script; now, manuscripts for publication had to be completed by assistants. Matters were complicated further by David Tudor's departure from performing, which happened in
8976-471: The early 1970s. Tudor decided to concentrate on composition instead, and so Cage, for the first time in two decades, had to start relying on commissions from other performers, and their respective abilities. Such performers included Grete Sultan , Paul Zukofsky , Margaret Leng Tan , and many others. Aside from music, Cage continued writing books of prose and poetry ( mesostics ). M was first published by Wesleyan University Press in 1973. In January 1978 Cage
9108-427: The era yet also his absorption of the writings of both Marshall McLuhan , on the effects of new media, and R. Buckminster Fuller , on the power of technology to promote social change. HPSCHD (1969), a gargantuan and long-running multimedia work made in collaboration with Lejaren Hiller , incorporated the mass superimposition of seven harpsichords playing chance-determined excerpts from the works of Cage, Hiller, and
9240-492: The first " happening " (see discussion below) in the United States, later titled Theatre Piece No. 1 , a multi-layered, multi-media performance event staged the same day as Cage conceived it that "that would greatly influence 1950s and 60s artistic practices". In addition to Cage, the participants included Cunningham and Tudor. From 1953 onward, Cage was busy composing music for modern dance, particularly Cunningham's dances (Cage's partner adopted chance too, out of fascination for
9372-1055: The galleries of Richard Serra , Dan Flavin , and Sol LeWitt , among others. In 2007, MCDC premiered XOVER , Cunningham's final collaboration with Rauschenberg, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In 2009, MCDC premiered Cunningham's newest work, Nearly Ninety , at the Brooklyn Academy of Music . The company concluded its farewell tour on December 31, 2011, with a performance at the Park Avenue Armory . Merce Cunningham Dance Company frequently collaborated with visual artists, architects, designers, and musicians. Many of Cunningham's most famous innovations were developed in collaboration with composer John Cage , his life partner. Cunningham and Cage used chance procedures to generate material, discarding many artistic traditions of narrative and form. Famously, they asserted that dance and its music should not be intentionally coordinated with one another. John Cage, after his death,
9504-435: The happenings of this period can be viewed as a forerunner to the ensuing Fluxus movement. In October 1960, Mary Bauermeister 's Cologne studio hosted a joint concert by Cage and the video artist Nam June Paik (Cage's friend and mentee), who in the course of his performance of Etude for Piano cut off Cage's tie and then poured a bottle of shampoo over the heads of Cage and Tudor. In 1967, Cage's book A Year from Monday
9636-508: The idea of music as means of communication: the public rarely accepted his work, and Cage himself, too, had trouble understanding the music of his colleagues. In early 1946 Cage agreed to tutor Gita Sarabhai , an Indian musician who came to the US to study Western music. In return, he asked her to teach him about Indian music and philosophy. Cage also attended, in late 1940s and early 1950s, D. T. Suzuki 's lectures on Zen Buddhism , and read further
9768-424: The institution was not being run correctly. I left. Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre , where he took a train to Paris. Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First, he studied Gothic and Greek architecture , but decided he
9900-516: The logistical limitations of non-traditional venues. While the Paul Taylor Dance Company is still performing and touring throughout the world, Taylor 2 has been temporarily closed. In 2005, it was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $ 20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation , which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg . In 2015, Taylor began
10032-482: The mid-1960s, Cage was receiving so many commissions and requests for appearances that he was unable to fulfill them. This was accompanied by a busy touring schedule; consequently Cage's compositional output from that decade was scant. After the orchestral Atlas Eclipticalis (1961–62), a work based on star charts , which was fully notated, Cage gradually shifted to, in his own words, "music (not composition)." The score of 0′00″ , completed in 1962, originally comprised
10164-625: The movement of the human body), as well as developing new methods of using chance, in a series of works he referred to as The Ten Thousand Things . In the summer of 1954 he moved out of New York and settled in Gate Hill Cooperative , a community in Stony Point, New York , where his neighbors included David Tudor, M. C. Richards , Karen Karnes , Stan VanDerBeek , and Sari Dienes . The composer's financial situation gradually improved: in late 1954 he and Tudor were able to embark on
10296-519: The new approach were Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12 radio receivers, and Music of Changes for piano. The latter work was written for David Tudor, whom Cage met through Feldman—another friendship that lasted until Cage's death. Tudor premiered most of Cage's works until the early 1960s, when he stopped performing on the piano and concentrated on composing music. The I Ching became Cage's standard tool for composition: he used it in practically every work composed after 1951, and eventually settled on
10428-475: The number of performers needed; the music consisted of short notated fragments to be played at any tempo within the indicated time constraints. Cage went on to write some forty such Number Pieces , as they came to be known, one of the last being Eighty (1992, premiered in Munich on October 28, 2011), usually employing a variant of the same technique. The process of composition, in many of the later Number Pieces,
10560-535: The older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge. Cage studied with Schoenberg in California: first at University of Southern California and then at University of California, Los Angeles , as well as privately. The older composer became one of the biggest influences on Cage, who "literally worshipped him", particularly as an example of how to live one's life being
10692-526: The opportunity to hear what other people think," anticipating 4′33″ by more than thirty years. Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a theology major in 1928. Often crossing disciplines again, though, he encountered at Pomona the work of artist Marcel Duchamp via Professor José Pijoan, of writer James Joyce via Don Sample, of philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy and of Henry Cowell . In 1930 he dropped out, having come to believe that "college
10824-541: The orchestra performed Anton Webern's Symphony , followed by a piece by Sergei Rachmaninoff . Cage felt so overwhelmed by Webern's piece that he left before the Rachmaninoff; and in the lobby, he met Feldman, who was leaving for the same reason. The two composers quickly became friends; some time later Cage, Feldman, Earle Brown , David Tudor and Cage's pupil Christian Wolff came to be referred to as "the New York school". In early 1951, Wolff presented Cage with
10956-488: The performer with similar difficulties. Still other works from the same period consist just of text instructions. The score of 0′00″ (1962; also known as 4′33″ No. 2 ) consists of a single sentence: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action." The first performance had Cage write that sentence. Musicircus (1967) simply invites the performers to assemble and play together. The first Musicircus featured multiple performers and groups in
11088-436: The performer with six transparent squares, one with points of various sizes, five with five intersecting lines. The performer combines the squares and uses lines and points as a coordinate system , in which the lines are axes of various characteristics of the sounds, such as lowest frequency, simplest overtone structure, etc. Some of Cage's graphic scores (e.g. Concert for Piano and Orchestra , Fontana Mix (both 1958)) present
11220-434: The piece that became his best-known and most controversial creation: 4′33″ . The score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece—four minutes, thirty-three seconds—and is meant to be perceived as consisting of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed. Cage conceived "a silent piece" years earlier, but was reluctant to write it down; and indeed,
11352-538: The plan, the Merce Cunningham Trust, established by Cunningham to serve as the custodian for his works, controls his dances for licensing purposes; Cunningham associates prepared detailed records of the dances so they could be licensed and given authentic productions by other companies. Besides, the plan outlined a final international tour for the company, and, ultimately, the closure of the Cunningham Dance Foundation and Merce Cunningham Dance Company and
11484-510: The premiere (given by Tudor on August 29, 1952, at Woodstock, New York ) caused an uproar in the audience. The reaction to 4′33″ was just a part of the larger picture: on the whole, it was the adoption of chance procedures that had disastrous consequences for Cage's reputation. The press, which used to react favorably to earlier percussion and prepared piano music, ignored his new works, and many valuable friendships and connections were lost. Pierre Boulez, who used to promote Cage's work in Europe,
11616-506: The president of the corporation, offered Cage an exclusive contract and instigated the publication of a catalog of Cage's works, which appeared in 1962. Edition Peters soon published a large number of scores by Cage, and this, together with the publication of Silence , led to much higher prominence for the composer than ever before—one of the positive consequences of this was that in 1965 Betty Freeman set up an annual grant for living expenses for Cage, to be issued from 1965 to his death. By
11748-570: The product. Because of his strong interest in the creation of the choreography he used chance procedures in his work. A chance procedure means that the order of the steps or sequence is unknown until the actual performance and is decided by chance. For instance in his work Suite by Chance he used the toss of a coin to determine how to put the choreographed sequences together. Indeterminacy was another part of Cunningham's work. Many of his pieces had sections or sequences that were rehearsed so that they could be put in any order and done at any time. Although
11880-620: The reply was a "rather vague letter", in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with Arnold Schoenberg —Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25- tone row , somewhat similar to Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique . Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended Adolph Weiss , a former Schoenberg pupil. Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at The New School . He supported himself financially by taking up
12012-424: The rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, "Experimental Music", he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living". Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″ , a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform
12144-468: The resulting piece, The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942), quickly became popular and was performed by the celebrated duo of Cathy Berberian and Luciano Berio . In 1944, he appeared in Maya Deren 's At Land , a 15-minute silent experimental film. Like his personal life, Cage's artistic life went through a crisis in mid-1940s. The composer was experiencing a growing disillusionment with
12276-502: The rhythmic structure of the originals and fill it with pitches determined through chance procedures, or just replace some of the originals' pitches. Yet another series of works, the so-called Number Pieces , all completed during the last five years of the composer's life, make use of time brackets : the score consists of short fragments with indications of when to start and to end them (e.g. from anywhere between 1′15" and 1′45", and to anywhere from 2′00" to 2′30"). Cage's method of using
12408-667: The same time, the composer also developed a type of a tone row technique with 25-note rows. After studies with Schoenberg, who never taught dodecaphony to his students, Cage developed another tone row technique, in which the row was split into short motives, which would then be repeated and transposed according to a set of rules. This approach was first used in Two Pieces for Piano ( c. 1935 ), and then, with modifications, in larger works such as Metamorphosis and Five Songs (both 1938). Soon after Cage started writing percussion music and music for modern dance, he started using
12540-521: The second of three sons. Both of his brothers followed their father, Clifford D. Cunningham, into the legal profession. Cunningham first experienced dance while living in Centralia. He took tap dance class from a local teacher, Mrs Maude Barrett, whose energy and spirit taught him to love dance. Her emphasis on precise musical timing and rhythm provided him with a clear understanding of musicality that he implemented in his later dance pieces. He attended
12672-461: The sound of traffic—here on Sixth Avenue, for instance—I don't have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound ... I don't need sound to talk to me. Although Cage had used chance on a few earlier occasions, most notably in the third movement of Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950–51), the I Ching opened new possibilities in this field for him. The first results of
12804-469: The stage; it need not even be frontally oriented, but can be viewed from any angle (at performances in Cunningham's studio, for instance, audiences are seated in an L-shaped configuration). The viewer's focus is never directed to a particular spot; he must often decide among many centres of activity. Merce Cunningham saw randomness and arbitrariness as positive qualities because they exist in real life. Most of Cunningham's choreographic process works to break
12936-465: The strings—in 1940. This concept was originally intended for a performance staged in a room too small to include a full percussion ensemble. It was also at the Cornish School that Cage met several people who became lifelong friends, such as painter Mark Tobey and dancer Merce Cunningham . The latter was to become Cage's lifelong romantic partner and artistic collaborator. Cage left Seattle in
13068-630: The summer of 1941 after the painter László Moholy-Nagy invited him to teach at the Chicago School of Design (what later became the IIT Institute of Design ). The composer accepted partly because he hoped to find opportunities in Chicago, that were not available in Seattle, to organize a center for experimental music. These opportunities did not materialize. Cage taught at the Chicago School of Design and worked as accompanist and composer at
13200-466: The transfer of all assets to the Merce Cunningham Trust. From Merce's death at age 90 through the Board's last meeting in 2012, the Legacy Plan implemented his wish that the company complete a worldwide legacy tour and then close. The final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company was on December 31, 2011, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. The final meeting of the board of directors for
13332-664: The use of chance in the 50s. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the " I Ching ", the Chinese book of changes, from which you can cast your fortune: the hexagrams. Cage took it to work in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of 64—the number of the hexagrams —to say that you had 64, for example, sounds; then you could cast, by chance, to find which sound first appeared, cast again, to say which sound came second, cast again, so that it's done by, in that sense, chance operations. Instead of finding out what you think should follow—say
13464-721: The use of chance operations was considered an abrogation of artistic responsibility, Cunningham was thrilled by a process that arrives at works that could never have been created through traditional collaboration. This does not mean, however, that Cunningham considered every piece created in this fashion a masterpiece. Those dances that did not "work" were quickly dropped from the repertory, while those that did were celebrated as serendipitous discoveries. Cunningham used "non-representational" choreography which simply emphasizes movement, and does not necessarily represent any historical narrative, emotional situation, or idea. Such non-representational dance appears in many styles throughout history, but
13596-405: The work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage
13728-695: The works of Coomaraswamy . The first fruits of these studies were works inspired by Indian concepts: Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, String Quartet in Four Parts , and others. Cage accepted the goal of music as explained to him by Sarabhai: "to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences". Early in 1946, his former teacher Richard Buhlig arranged for Cage to meet Berlin-born pianist Grete Sultan , who had escaped from Nazi persecution to New York in 1941. They became close, lifelong friends, and Cage later dedicated part of his Music for Piano and his monumental piano cycle Etudes Australes to her. In 1949, he received
13860-414: The world has a spirit that can be released through its sound." Although Cage did not share the idea of spirits, these words inspired him to begin exploring the sounds produced by hitting various non-musical objects. In 1938, on Cowell's recommendation, Cage drove to San Francisco to find employment and to seek out fellow Cowell student and composer Lou Harrison . According to Cowell, the two composers had
13992-578: Was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures . Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance -controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching , an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage's standard composition tool for
14124-493: Was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. These include Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48). Cage was born September 5, 1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles. His father, John Milton Cage Sr. (1886–1964), was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia ("Crete") Harvey (1881–1968), worked intermittently as
14256-468: Was also used (along with nested proportions) for the large piano work Music of Changes (1951), only here material would be selected from the charts by using the I Ching . All of Cage's music since 1951 was composed using chance procedures, most commonly using the I Ching . For example, works from Music for Piano were based on paper imperfections: the imperfections themselves provided pitches, coin tosses and I Ching hexagram numbers were used to determine
14388-451: Was an American composer and music theorist . A pioneer of indeterminacy in music , electroacoustic music , and non-standard use of musical instruments , Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde . Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance , mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham , who
14520-450: Was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage , David Tudor , Brian Eno , and graphic artists Robert Rauschenberg , Bruce Nauman , Andy Warhol , Roy Lichtenstein , Frank Stella , and Jasper Johns ; and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo . Works that he produced with these artists had
14652-475: Was appointed artistic director designate by Taylor in the spring of 2018, and took over as artistic director in September 2018 after Taylor died. The Paul Taylor Dance Company was founded in 1954. One of the early touring companies of American modern dance, the Paul Taylor Dance Company has performed in more than 520 cities in 64 countries. In most years, about half of each performance season is spent touring in
14784-545: Was created by using playing cards. Each movement was assigned a playing card and chosen randomly. Cunningham's lifelong passion for exploration and innovation made him a leader in applying new technologies to the arts. He began investigating dance on film in the 1970s, and after 1991 choreographed using the computer program LifeForms, a software made by Zella Wolofsky , Tom Calvert, and Thecla Schiphorst . Cunningham explored motion capture technology with digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar to create Hand-drawn Spaces ,
14916-530: Was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left. Cage's association with theater also started in Europe: during a walk in Seville he witnessed, in his own words, "the multiplicity of simultaneous visual and audible events all going together in one's experience and producing enjoyment." Cage returned to the United States in 1931. He went to Santa Monica, California , where he made
15048-407: Was first published by Wesleyan University Press. Cage's parents died during the decade: his father in 1964, and his mother in 1969. Cage had their ashes scattered in Ramapo Mountains , near Stony Point, and asked for the same to be done to him after his death. Cage's work from the sixties features some of his largest and most ambitious, not to mention socially utopian pieces, reflecting the mood of
15180-745: Was first seen at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona in 1999, and subsequently at the Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 1999; the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2000; and the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2000. Cunningham choreographed almost 200 works for his company. John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992)
15312-407: Was his right hand for the past half-century. She finished her active dancing career in 1985 but remains the company's Rehearsal Director to this day. The Taylor School has taught Taylor's style to professional-level dancers since 1984. Mr. Taylor established Taylor 2 Dance Company in 1993 to ensure that his works could be seen by audiences all over the world regardless of economic considerations and
15444-492: Was invited by Kathan Brown of Crown Point Press to engage in printmaking, and Cage would go on to produce series of prints every year until his death; these, together with some late watercolors , constitute the largest portion of his extant visual art. In 1979 Cage's Empty Words was first published by Wesleyan University Press. In 1987, Cage completed a piece called Two , for flute and piano, dedicated to performers Roberto Fabbriciani and Carlo Neri. The title referred to
15576-547: Was involved in relationships with Don Sample and with architect Rudolph Schindler 's wife Pauline when he met Xenia, he fell in love immediately. Cage and Kashevaroff were married in the desert at Yuma, Arizona , on June 7, 1935. The newly married couple first lived with Cage's parents in Pacific Palisades , then moved to Hollywood. During 1936–38 Cage changed numerous jobs, including one that started his lifelong association with modern dance: dance accompanist at
15708-650: Was named Officier of the Légion d'honneur in France. Cunningham's life and artistic vision have been the subject of numerous books, films, and exhibitions, and his works have been presented by groups including the Paris Opéra Ballet , New York City Ballet , American Ballet Theatre , White Oak Dance Project , and London's Rambert Dance Company . Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington , in 1919,
15840-415: Was not commonly used by ballet or Martha Graham , Cunningham's primary influences. In the use of chance procedures, Cunningham abandoned the more traditional structured form of dance. He did not believe that dance needs a beginning, middle or end. In Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1951), Cunningham used Indeterminacy for the first time in this piece; the changing element for each show
15972-493: Was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it. He then took up painting, poetry and music. It was in Europe that, encouraged by his teacher Lazare Lévy , he first heard the music of contemporary composers (such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith ) and finally got to know the music of Johann Sebastian Bach , which he had not experienced before. After several months in Paris, Cage's enthusiasm for America
16104-494: Was not thinking of composition. During high school, one of his music teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon . By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. He graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian , having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being "hushed and silent," he said, "we should have
16236-399: Was of no use to a writer" after an incident described in his 1991 autobiographical statement: I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that
16368-471: Was one ... of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius." Cage would later adopt the "inventor" moniker and deny that he was in fact a composer. At some point in 1934–35, during his studies with Schoenberg, Cage was working at his mother's arts and crafts shop, where he met artist Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff . She was an Alaskan -born daughter of a Russian priest; her work encompassed fine bookbinding , sculpture and collage . Although Cage
16500-626: Was one of the first choreographers to begin experimenting with film. He created an original work for the video Westbeth (1974) in collaboration with filmmaker Charles Atlas The computer program later became DanceForms and uses avatars of dancers with color-coded limbs as a platform for choreography. In 2009, Cunningham's interest in new media led to the creation of the behind-the-scenes webcast Mondays with Merce . The use of stage space also changed in Cunningham's choreography. The "front and centre" spot traditionally coveted by soloists no longer exists in his works. Dance can take place on any part of
16632-466: Was opposed to Cage's particular approach to the use of chance, and so were other composers who came to prominence during the 1950s, e.g. Karlheinz Stockhausen . During this time Cage was also teaching at the avant-garde Black Mountain College just outside Asheville, North Carolina . Cage taught at the college in the summers of 1948 and 1952 and was in residence the summer of 1953. While at Black Mountain College in 1952, he organized what has been called
16764-491: Was published years later. Another new direction, also taken in 1987, was opera: Cage produced five operas, all sharing the same title Europera , in 1987–91. Europeras I and II require greater forces than III , IV and V , which are on a chamber scale. They were commissioned by the Frankfurt Opera to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday, and according to music critic Mark Swed , they took "an enormous effort on
16896-500: Was revived after he read Walt Whitman 's Leaves of Grass – he wanted to return immediately, but his parents, with whom he regularly exchanged letters during the entire trip, persuaded him to stay in Europe for a little longer and explore the continent. Cage started traveling, visiting various places in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as Capri and, most importantly, Majorca , where he started composing. His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulas, but Cage
17028-447: Was selected only based on whether it contains the note necessary for the melody, and so the rest of the notes do not form any directional harmony. Concerto for prepared piano (1950–51) used a system of charts of durations, dynamics, melodies, etc., from which Cage would choose using simple geometric patterns. The last movement of the concerto was a step towards using chance procedures, which Cage adopted soon afterwards. A chart system
17160-416: Was simple selection of pitch range and pitches from that range, using chance procedures; the music has been linked to Cage's anarchic leanings. One (i.e., the eleventh piece for a single performer), completed in early 1992, was Cage's first and only foray into film. Cage conceived his last musical work with Michael Bach Bachtischa : "ONE13" for violoncello with curved bow and three loudspeakers, which
17292-564: Was succeeded in the role of music director by David Tudor . After 1995, MCDC's music director was Takehisa Kosugi . MCDC commissioned more work from contemporary composers than any other dance company. Its repertory included works by musicians ranging from Cage and Gordon Mumma to Gavin Bryars , as well as popular bands like Radiohead , Sigur Rós and Sonic Youth . The company also collaborated with an array of visual artists and designers. Robert Rauschenberg , whose famous "Combines" reflect
17424-449: Was the sequence of the sections. In Field Dances (1963), Cunningham experimented with giving the dancer more freedom. Each dancer was given a sequence of movements with which they could do as they pleased. This included exiting and entering at will, executing it in any order and as many times as desired. In Story (1963), Cunningham experimented with the variables of costumes and sets. Before each performance dancers chose an outfit from
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