Arts Listings

Choreographer Merce Cunningham—whom the New York Times has called “the high priest of the dance avant-garde,” and who, approaching 90, is one of the last great living figures of the postwar generation of American artists—will be making appearances beginning this afternoon (Thursday) in a two-week Berkeley residency. 

He will appear with his 14-member dance company, four multi-instrumentalists (music director Takehisa Kosugi, John King, David Behrman and Christian Wolff), as well as local artists, soprano Aurora Josephson and percussionist William Winant, both of Oakland.  

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company will perform for Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall (8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Nov. 7, 8, 14, 15), as well as in a just-announced site-specific performance, Craneway Event, this Sun., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. at Ford Point in Richmond.  

Other events include a film series (5:30 p.m. this Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Thurs. Nov. 13 at Pacific Film Archive); a multimedia event, Panorama, featuring artists, dancers, engineers, roboticists and digital game makers from UC Berkeley, directed by UC Dance Program director Linda Wymore (5-7 p.m. Fri., Nov. 14, at Pauley Ballroom).  

Two events with Cunningham are today (Thursday) at UC Berkeley: a colloquium with his composers and musicians (including Stephan Moore), 4-5:30 p.m. at 125 Morrison Hall, followed by an artist talk with Cunningham at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium. 

This Friday’s Program A at Zellerbach features Suite for Five (1956), set to John Cage’s music and “laced with balletic themes”; “eyeSpace” (2006), a 20-minute version to Mikel Rouses’s score, “iPod shuffle friendly,” and a live, ambient environmental soundscape performed throughout the hall (iPods distributed for performance); and Biped (1999 world premiere in Berkeley), music by Gavin Bryars, using motion capture sensors on dancers transformed into projections.  

Program B Saturday, Nov. 8, features Second Hand—from a solo Idyllic Song (1944) set to Erik Satie’s Socrate, as arranged for solo piano by John Cage. Denied permission by Satie’s estate, Cage based a new work, Cheap Imitation on a rendition of Satie’s structure and phraseology, with Cunningham also renaming his work; and Split Sides, originally played by Radiohead and Sigur Ros, British rock band and Icelandic experimental ensemble.  

Program C, Friday, Nov. 14, will be a 40-minute version of “eyeSpace,” with additional music by David Behrman and Annea Lockwood.  

Program D on Saturday, Nov. 15, opens with Views on Stage (2004), filmdance with Charles Atlas set to John Cage’s music; Crises, “a dramatic though not narrative, dance ... between a man and four women,” according to Cage; and Cunningham’s most recent work, Xover (”Crossover,” 2007), set to two 1958 Cage compositions, Aria (with soprano Aurora Josephson) and Fontana Mix, set and costumes designed by late renowned painter, Robert Rauschenberg, longtime Cunningham-Cage collaborator. 

Craneway Event will be held at the 517,000-square-foot former Ford assembly plant in Richmond, designed by architect Albert Kahn in the 1930s, on the National Register of National Historic Places since 1988, where Jeeps and tanks were made during World War II. It boasts hundreds of windows and a panorama of the bay. The event will be choreographed on multiple stages, with live composed and improvised music, using chance operations, the audience encouraged to move around and view the performance from different angles. Cunningham has staged nearly 800 such events since the first in Vienna in 1964, a collaboration with Rauschenberg. 

Merce Cunningham, born in April 1919, in Centralia, Wash., was a soloist for Martha Graham from 1939 to 1945. He presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage, who would be his lifelong partner and collaborator, in April 1944.  

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was formed in the summer of 1953 at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, during that school’s moment in the vanguard of interdisciplinary education and experimentation. Cunningham has choreographed nearly 200 works for the company. Long interested in contemporary technology, he has created a computer program, DanceForms. 

MERCE CUNNINGHAM 

Tickets for Zellerbach Hall: $26-48 (half off, UC Berkeley students; $10-20 rush tickets announced 2 hours before performance); Craneway Event: $40 (sold out; returns may be available). Colloquium and artist talk, free. 642-9988 (#2 for rush tickets announcements), www.calperformances.org, or Zellerbach Hall box office.