Research Catalog

Interview with Merce Cunningham

Title
Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05.
Author
Cunningham, Merce
Publication
September 5, 1980.

Available Online

NYPL Digital Collections

Details

Additional Authors
  • Vaughan, David, 1924-
  • Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, donor.
Found In
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
Description
1 streaming audio file (36 minutes) : digital, stereo
Summary
Begins abruptly; Merce Cunningham speaks with David Vaughan about auditioning, with improvised tap dancing, for clubs in Boston; Cunningham speaks about rehearsing the play Him [by e.e. cummings] with a small theater group during his first year in the Martha Graham Dance Company; more about his first year with Graham, especially the outside performance activities of the dancers and tours with the Company; his observations of Martha Graham and some of the conventions at her school, including the dance wear; Cunningham recalls a photographic session of the duet with Dorothy Herrmann at the Mills College Greek theater; he speaks about seeing a performance in Seattle with Mrs. [Maude] Barrett of a Russian dance company; an anecdote on being a super[lative] performer in a Ballet Russe production of Petruchka in Seattle; briefly, his response to a Humphrey-Weidman Company performance he attended in Seattle; an anecdote on seeing a Ballet Caravan performance of Billy the kid in Seattle; Vaughan asks Cunningham about other dance performances in Seattle; Cunningham speaks about Nellie Cornish being instrumental in bringing dance performance to Seattle, including [Udi?] Shankar; Cunningham speaks about attending dance performances during his first year in New York including the inaugural season of Ballet Theatre; Cunningham speaks about stopping at art galleries during his walks home from ballet class at the School of American Ballet; he speaks briefly about formally meeting Marcel Duchamp after his marriage to "Teeny" [Alexina]; he tells an anecdote about Gyspy Rose Lee's entrance to a party at Peggy Guggenheim's apartment; he lists some of the influential painters in New York at that time, especially those that were acquainted with Guggenheim, and lists artists he knew through Black Mountain College; briefly, his admiration of Yves Klein; he briefly speaks about going to John Cage's lectures at the "8th street artists club" and he mentions other bars where artists congregated; a bar he would go to with Cage, "Bob" [Robert Rauschenberg], and "Jap" [Jasper Johns]; he speaks about meeting [Rauschenberg] at Black Mountain College; he speaks about reading [Antonin] Artaud's [Theatre and its double] with M.C. Richards at Black Mountain; Cunningham speaks about the influence of his theater training while at Cornish College, especially anecdotes about his theater professor, Alexander Koriansky; he speaks about the idea that drama is created by a gamut of contrasts in movement; he speaks about unifying the disparate movement within his works and keeping the whole in mind; Cunningham speaks about the theatricality of the rituals in the Catholic church of his childhood, including an anecdote on his being an altar boy and catching on fire; [brief interruption]; more on the theatricality of the church's ceremonies and garments.
Alternative Title
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials.
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Interviews.
  • Sound recordings.
Note
  • David Vaughan interviews Merce Cunningham, probably in [New York, New York], on September 5, 1980. This interview was created as research for David Vaughan's book, Merce Cunningham: Fifty years (New York, Aperture).
  • Title and dates provided by cataloger based on audition and handwritten and typed notes on original container.
  • Handwritten and typed notes on original original container: "Merce Cunningham with D. Vaughan - Sept. 5/80 ; 1. Interview with Merce Cunningham ; 5 September 1980".
  • Sound quality is mostly good; there are occasional background noises.
Access (note)
  • Patrons can access streaming audio only on site at NYPL Research Libraries.
Source (note)
  • Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation
Linking Entry (note)
  • Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
Call Number
*LTC-A 1446
OCLC
913964999
Author
Cunningham, Merce, interviewee.
Title
Interview with Merce Cunningham, 1980-09-05.
Production
September 5, 1980.
Playing Time
003533
Type of Content
spoken word
Type of Medium
audio
Type of Carrier
audiocassette
online resource
Digital File Characteristics
audio file
Event
Originally recorded in, [New York, New York], 1980 September 5.
Restricted Access
Patrons can access streaming audio only on site at NYPL Research Libraries.
Original Version
Archival original: (1 audio cassette (36 minutes) : analog) in *LTC-A 1446 no. 8.
Linking Entry
Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
Local Note
Transferred from original analog cassette by George Blood Audio on March 25, 2015.
Source
Gift; Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, 2011-2012.
Connect to:
NYPL Digital Collections
Added Author
Vaughan, David, 1924- interviewer.
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, donor.
Added Title
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Audio materials.
Found In:
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
Research Call Number
*LTC-A 1446
View in Legacy Catalog