Among the many incredible accomplishments that the late dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham was famous for were his Events performed in a multitude of venues and alternative spaces around the globe. On April 8, 2024, the world premiere of Daniel Madoff’s film The Events at Dia Beacon will take place at the New York Public Library’s Bruno Walter Theater. Following the screening, producer Nancy Dalva will host a panel discussion with Jennifer Goggans, Daniel Madoff and choreographer/dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, all Cunningham dancers who appear in the film.
In his company’s performance programs, Cunningham wrote: “Presented without intermission, this Event consists of complete dances, excerpts of dances from the repertory, and often new sequences arranged for particular performance and place, with the possibility of several separate activities happening at the same time—to allow not so much [for] an evening of dances as the experience of dance.”
Merce Cunningham Dance Company “The Events at Dia Beacon” – Andrea Weber and Rashaun Mitchell – Photo ©Anna Finke
The very first Event, Museum Event No. 1, took place in Vienna, Austria at the Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts on June 24, 1964 with music, Atlas Eclipticalis composed and performed by John Cage. The members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company who performed that Event were Shareen Blair, Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham, William Davis, Viola Farber, Deborah Hay, Barbara Lloyd (Dilly), Sandra Neels, Steve Paxton, and Albert Reid. Each and every Event was unique and according to the Cunningham Trust website, the company performed more than 800 Events usually with a duration of between 60 to 90 minutes. In full disclosure, I performed in many such Events during my three years with the company.
During my years with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company we did not know which of the dances in the repertoire were going to be performed at an Event until we arrived at the venue. We would warm up and then Merce would begin telling the company what sections of which dances we would be performing as we spaced out the Event. Depending on the space, Merce would change where we faced during a specific section. Example: if we were in a gymnasium, we might begin a phrase from Merce’s work Scramble facing one set of bleachers, shift to the opposite side in the middle of the phrase and finish facing one of the basketball hoops. The front changed constantly, so not only did we have to remember the order of what we were performing, but which way we were facing. Of course, we wrote it down and place the information where we could review it during the time we were off stage.
Floor Plan of Dia at Beacon – Courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
If the Event occurred in a museum, then the same procedure applied with the exception that we would have to travel from gallery to gallery, much in the manner seen in The Events at Dia Beacon. There is a film that the company made in 1968 titled Assemblage where we danced all around San Francisco’s historic Ghirardelli Square including on the rooftops and on the giant Ghirardelli Square sign. There are wonderful photos from the making of Assemblage in James Klosty’s book “Merce Cunningham Redux.”
Nancy Dalva and I had a very enjoyable mutual interview on Zoom. We had never met but Dalva said that she had seen me perform with the Viola Farber Dance Company in New York and I had long enjoyed her writings and her Mondays with Merce interviews. By the end of the two hours, I felt that I had known Nancy Dalva my entire life.
“The Events at Dia Beacon” – Daniel Squire and Brandon Collwes – Photo ©Anna Finke courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
She first saw the Cunningham Company in 1966 at Hunter College. The dance she saw that night was How To Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run (1965) and “I fell in love.” At the time she was attending a private girls school with an honor code and mandatory uniforms. The costumes for How To Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run were black tights with different colored sweaters and the sound was John Cage opening a bottle of champagne and then reading from his book “Indeterminacy,” while smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder. “This is where I want to be,” Dalva thought at the time. “Not at school where girls snitch on you all the time.”
Dalva saw the company again in 1974 and in 1977 when they came to Austin, Texas. By then she was a writer and she managed to get an interview with Cunningham. “It was his birthday and I brought him a paper sack of avocados,” she said. She followed the company to San Antonio.
While at the Yale School of Drama, Dalva had published a piece about Merce Cunningham which the manager of the company at the time Art Becofsky had read and enjoyed so much that he offered Dalva press tickets to any concert she wanted to see. Every spring thereafter she flew to New York to see the Cunningham company. From about 1977 on, she saw every single performance during every spring season. On tour, Dalva was allowed to observe the pre-performance rehearsals on stage and the evening performances. Soon Dalva was traveling around the world to attend Cunningham Company concerts.
“The Events at Dia Beacon” Merce Cunningham Dance Company – Courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
“When my children were little I once went to Paris for two nights,” She said. “I went to Brussels for three. I couldn’t leave for long but I just loved it so much. I just loved it!”
Between the years 2007 and 2009, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company presented a series of Cunningham’s Events at Dia Beacon. Madoff’s film is a compilation of five of those site specific performances including footage from dress rehearsals and live in the Bruce Nauman, John Chamberlain, Sol LeWitt, Imi Knoebel and Dan Flavin galleries.
At the time of these captures, Madoff was in the Cunningham Company and therefore had an intimate understanding of the specific arrangement in each site specific situation. Dalva said that she could not have made this film with anyone else.
“The Events at Dia Beacon” – Robert Swinston and Jennifer Goggans – Photo ©Anna Finke courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
“This movie shows Merce’s method because Daniel transitions on jumps or on phrases,” she explained. “So you go from – it could be the same couple going up in the air and landing somewhere else. Or it can be one couple going up in the air and a different couple landing, to be very simple about it. If you really watch it you can see how Merce Cunningham cast different people in the same material at different times. And in like manner, he uses the same material in different situations and choreographic contexts.”
This film is not in chronological order. Rather, Dalva asked Madoff to make a film Event with her out of the entirety of the Events. Dalva stated: “He made an Event, but it’s novel, and it is cinematic.”
The Events at Dia Beacon – Rashaun Mitchell and Andrea Weber – Photo ©Anna Finke courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
When I asked her what was so different about the Events at Dia Beacon that caused her to want to film them, Dalva became very animated, saying, “I didn’t want to film them. I wanted to film everything! I never wanted to stop.”
She explained how, as much as she enjoyed creating the webseries Mondays With Merce, it was almost a side effect of doing what she had to do in order to do what she wanted to do, which was to record Cunningham and his work as much as possible. “What I wanted to do was save Merce Cunningham,” she said looking directly into the Zoom camera.
“Then I started the Merce Cunningham Trust YouTube channel to make the Mondays with Merce and the associated videos in The Mondays with Merce Film Library readily available anywhere in the world,” she explained. “YouTube is the most watched television channel in the world. I wanted people to be able to see the work in their own time zones, with optional closed captioning, and useful links to resources that can be easily translated to a very wide range of languages. After some additional theatrical screenings, The Events at Dia Beacon will enjoy an online life. “ I’m interested,” said Dalva, “ in making things available so they don’t disappear.”
Merce Cunningham with Nancy Dalva – photo ©Leon Dalva courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
The actual music – curated by composer/musician John King for each of the original five Events – is the score for the film. “We did not alter that. We didn’t change anything except the order,” Dalva said.
Regarding the Cunningham company over the years—from 1952 to 2011– Dalva said, “You all are all Cunningham dancers and the repertory belongs to all of you.” When she introduces the film The Events at Dia Beacon, Dalva plans to say something along the lines of: In this film the audience will see material from decades of Cunningham’s dances and that there are people sitting in the theater who are the originators of that material, work that was handed down from generation to generation.
During the Centennial Celebration of Merce Cunningham’s birthday, Dalva saw many companies perform works by Cunningham. She traveled around Europe to see some of them and also watched several Cunningham dancers either restage his work or coach ballet dancers who were scheduled to perform it. “What I came to believe on my Centennial tour is that Merce’s work resides not only in his choreography but also—a significantly in his dancers and how they live their lives,” She said. “You were drawn to it because you had a certain cast of mind….”
After I had screened The Event at Dia Beacon, I wrote Dalva in an email: “The film is beautiful. It captures the essence of the Events, Merce’s work, and the incredible dancers and musicians. No excess. Just pure Merce.”
[I will update this post when The Events at Dia Beacon becomes available online, and if there are any L. A. area screenings.—J.S.]
To view the trailer for The Events at Dia Beacon, please click HERE.
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: “The Events at Dia Beacon” – Silas Riener, Emma Desjardins, Daniel Squire, Julie Cunningham, Andrea Weber – Photo ©Anna Finke courtesy of Merce Cunningham Trust.
