Grand Union: Taking a Chance on Dance Robb Er
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
39 GRAND UNION: TAKING A CHANCE ON DANCE ROBB ER In a solo performance in 1969, Trisha Brown walked I. PERFORMERS TOGETHER creative issue, created partial forms to be completed in out on s.tage and announced to her audience, "I want This spring Grand Union presented its most extensive performance." He relates how the individual dancers you to yell yellow belly at me." She kepf egging the New York season to date, offering seventeen company were then allowed to order the pre-set sections, to crowd on until they· responded as requested, with jeers performances (plus several solo appearances by bring in their own music or props, and, finally, to insert and catcalls and loud shouts of the proposed phrase, members of the group) and sponsoring various other their own bits bf choreography while throwing out parts which means "coward" in good old American slang. And music and dance concerts during two months of of the original. "The development that Rainer's par then she danced to the taunts. As she now explains it, residence at the Dance Gallery on East Fourteenth ticularly orderly mind evolved began to function as a "I was playing with the whole concept of being booed Street. valuable exercise for the company" (in such areas as onstage. I got them to do what I feared most-from Six performers participated in this set of Grand role playing, how to build mutual trust and how to make the very beginning. My movement was totally im Union programs: Trisha Brown , Douglas Dunn, Nancy artistic decisions). "When Rainer had ritually merged provised. The only thing I knew for sure ahead of time Green, David Gordon, Barbara Lloyd and Steve Paxton. her separate ego with those of the company via was that I was going to stand on my head and give Yvonne Rainer, the dancer/choreographer out of whose 'Continuous Project-Altered Daily,' they had reached them the finger. " dance company Grand Union originally sprang, the beginning of Grand Union." "Yellow Belly Dance" is an interesting forerunner of appeared briefly in two of the seventeen concerts, but, The new company (so named by David Gordon: "We the performance philosophy of Grand Union, an im as she herself stressed in a conversation following the specifically wanted something without dance in it as provisational dance company formed about a year later final performance, her own energy at that time was our name") beautifully exemplified what critic Jill (in the fall of 1970), with Ms. Brown and eight other being channeled into her own activities, not those of Johnson had described two years earlier as the "dance dancer/choreographers making up its membership. Grand Union's Dance Gallery series. The two other underground": "The new choreographers are out Grand Union likewise toys with the dangers per original members of the group, Becky Arnold and Dong, rageously invalidating the very nature of authority. The formers face in confronting a possibly hostile public have now left the company. thinking behind the work goes beyond democracy into (and the corresponding self-trust necessary to deal The six members of Grand Union involved in the anarchy. No member outstanding. No bOdy necessarily with such a situation), with the subtleties and vagaries series come from varied backgrounds (different more important or more beautiful than any other body. of performer/audience interaction, with improvised birthplaces, different astrological signs, different paths No movement necessarily more important or more movement (incorporating, in this case, one preplanned to dance). But they do share certain significant pre beautiful than any other movement. It is, at last, seeing "bit"), with calling on the collective memory of Grand Union experiences. All studied regularly with beyond our subjective tastes and conditioning, always audience and performer alike (the "yellow belly" Merce Cunningham at one time or another, and three admittedly operative, to a phenomenological un reference), with making performing itself (instead of a of them (Steve, Barbara and Doug) have been derstanding of the world. " story or pretty visuals) the focus of a performance. members of the Cunningham company. All six spent As Steve points out, each member of the group-to-be Multiply Trisha's "Yellow Belly Dance" by six (there summers (at various times) at the Connecticut College realized what was happening at separate, individual being, at present, six active members of Grand Union), American Dance Festival-where most of them ob, times. Near the end of the evolution, Trisha, Nancy and keeping in mind not just arithmetic progression, but the jected to the rigidly set up composition courses taught Dong were invited to join what was still ostensibly geometric range of possible new relationships as well by Louis Horst and his followers . Trisha , Steve and Yvonne's group, but what was in actuality the budding (five dancers relating to one dancer; four dancers David (along with Yvonne) later took a very different, of a new leaderless, improvisational dance company relating to two dancers; one dancer relating to another far more experimental composition course offered by (with Yvonne simply a member/contributor, like all the at the left side of the stage, while a third dancer relates Bob and Judith Dunn at the Cunningham studio back in others) . to the remaining three at the right side of the stage; all New York--and participated as choreographer/per Initially there was predictable confusion as to direc six dancers relating individually to the audience; etc., formers in the now-famous dance concerts by students tion (who would make artistic decisions in a group that etc., etc.)-and you begin to get an idea of what an of that class at Judson Church (Barbara also danced in was all leaders? when? how?) . Doug describes it "The exploratory improvisational concert by Grand Union can some of the Judson works, though she did not present beginnings were very awkward. We tried to make a be like. any of her own choreographies there). work where everyone contributed a phrase, so that for Not that it always works, as Grand Union members In 1966, Rainer choreographed a work entitled "Trio a while, it was semi-structured work. This led to are the first to admit. When you play with chance, you A," with Steve, David and herself featured. The piece complete improvisation-on-the-spot decisions based also risk failure. Improvisation is always a gamble, and became part of a longer work called "The Mind Is a on our own familiarity with each other and our sometimes Grand Union does lose . The audience may Muscle" (which had another section that Barbara was experience of having performed together. Our im on occasion go away bored if, on some particular night, in). Doug joined the Rainer company for "Rose Frac provisation is still about making decisions, setting the chemistry doesn 't work or the improvisation simply tions, " Yvonne's contribution to the Billy Rose Theatre limits." The improvisation structure perhaps was self fails to come off. avant garde dance series in 1969. Rainer also took her determined to "go all the way." As David puts it, Yet such a case is the exception rather than the rule. whole company to Connecticut College that summer, "There 's no such thing as a little freedom ." And many Grand Union audiences come back, rather where they began working on a flexible piece entitled II. PERFORMERS ALONE regularly, because they find something uniquely per "Continuous Project-Altered Daily." "Without exception," Steve Paxton says, "we each do sonal /universal about the Grand Union experience. As Doug describes that work as follows: "There was no very different work alone or in other groups than we do Barbara Lloyd, another member of the present group, question as to the direction that 'Project' was taking as in Grand Union. Each social or artistic configuration we puts it "Among the particular set of New York artists a piece-choreographically and emotionally. Things participate in produces a different head." with whom most of us are associated, Grand Union had started out very precise , very cool. Then literally Steve himself has choreographed and performed represents a kind of [dramatized] human community. tiny bit by tiny bit, things began to change. Yvonne extensively in other groups. He grew up in Arizona, took We provide a kind of collective psyche that in encouraged our playing around with the material. More gymnastics and modern dance (Graham technique ) dividual-and very individualistic-artists can identify and more of the structures opened up; improvisation there, moved to New York and studied with Limon and with. We 're objects of curiosity and fascination . Every began to creep in. By the time of the Whitney Museum Cunningham, joining the latter's company from 1961 to audience member experiences Grand Union individual concerts in 1970, this was in full swing. Yvonne had 1965. He took the Dunns' composition course and ly, just the way every Grand Union member himself begun to let us choose the order of the bits. She was began to make his own dances, employing chance , experiences the group individually. There is no easy being challenged , again and again , and little by little picture scores, animals onstage, nudity, everyday description of who we are ." she turned loose the reins. But she worked with the activities (such as walking),plastic inflatables and other challengers all along-and upped their antes. 'O.K. So props, videotape and film , outdoor and non -proscenium you want to do that, ' she would say. 'You can. Fine . But environments, non-trained dancers, experiments with At left: Time-out at a Grand Union concert? Not really. not only that, you have to do this as well ."' Grand Union performances usually begin before the space and time perspectives, minimal movement, audience arrives and are so structured that even when Steve has interestingly chronicled (in an article on sports-related movement, and verbal accompaniment one of the performers announces "Intermission" or Grand Union in the September 1972 Drama Review) (often spoken material relating to the dance movement "The End," you more than likely are not supposed to how Yvonne carefully controlled the dissolution of her being performed onstage at the same time).