Sonic Youth in Cunningham Celebration
 

www.saucerlike.com

Sonic Youth in Cunningham Celebration
November 3, 2008

April 16 marks the 90th birthday of Merce Cunningham—one of the most important choreographers of our time—whose radical approaches to space, time, and technology continue to redefine the way we experience dance. Over the course of his celebrated career, he has forged a distinctive language of movement, illuminating the body’s inherent drama and limitless capacity for change. And as a longtime collaborator of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, he has played a leading role in fostering innovation across art forms.

In celebration of his birthday, Merce Cunningham Dance Company returns to BAM with the world premiere of a dazzling evening-length work created in collaboration with and performed live by underground rock legend Sonic Youth, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and mixed-media sound composer Takehisa Kosugi. With an intriguing multi-tiered décor by world-renowned architect Benedetta Tagliabue, lighting by Tony and Obie-winning designer Brian MacDevitt, and costumes by Romeo Gigli, this new masterpiece is testament to the boundless imagination of a man who, on the cusp of his ninth decade, still keeps us on our toes.

More info here.

Moshe

[maybe i'm seeing the blurb wrong but it looks like this will have four performances

cool. thanks for in fo!

so jones is gonna be playing w/ sy?

I hope those shows will be filmed for a DVD release. Maybe it is a good opportunity to release that SY/Takehisa Kosugi session too...

maybe it is good opportunity go to NY.

Hers an update on Pitchfork

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...on-dance-piece

Also, here is an insanley great track by JPJ "4 mInute Warning"

Its on ITunes
http://www.zavvi.co.uk/music-10+to+1...3c.r10.1/p.jsf

cheers for da update link. new for me was that Lee's going to have 2 art shows in Europe and he series of three of 12" singles by a french band.

I'd love to go to NY for that live "thingy"...I might

Sounds like fun.

I had no idea he was ninety.

Total Coolness !

I saw JPJ in a solo show with members of Bauhaus and others in 2000 and it was great....Oh and I have that "4 minute warning" on a cd with Eno and others...called Music for Films, I believe....the disc is from 1988.

great track

non member tickets on sale today!

Merce Cunningham at 90

Part of the 2009 Spring Season

Apr 16 at 7pm*
Apr 17 & 18 at 7:30pm
Apr 19 at 3pm

*BAM Spring Gala

Merce Cunningham at 90
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Choreography by Merce Cunningham

Commissioned by BAM


“...he has routinely been described as the world’s greatest choreographer… The dances he has made this millennium suggest, amazingly, that no choreographer alive is more concerned with continuing to extend his range.”
—The New York Times

April 16 marks the 90th birthday of Merce Cunningham—one of the most important choreographers of our time—whose radical approaches to space, time, and technology continue to redefine the way we experience dance. Over the course of his celebrated career, he has forged a distinctive language of movement, illuminating the body’s inherent drama and limitless capacity for change. And as a longtime collaborator of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, he has played a leading role in fostering innovation across art forms.

In celebration of his birthday, Merce Cunningham Dance Company returns to BAM with the world premiere of a dazzling evening-length work created in collaboration with and performed live by underground rock legend Sonic Youth, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and mixed-media sound composer Takehisa Kosugi. With an intriguing multi-tiered décor by world-renowned architect Benedetta Tagliabue, lighting by Tony and Obie-winning designer Brian MacDevitt, and costumes by Romeo Gigli, this new masterpiece is testament to the boundless imagination of a man who, on the cusp of his ninth decade, still keeps us on our toes.


BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Running time: 90min with intermission

Subscription tickets: $20, 36, 52, 60
(Full price: $25, 45, 65, 75)


Décor Design by Benedetta Tagliabue
Lighting Design by Brian MacDevitt
Costumes by Romeo Gigli for "io ipse idem"

Music composed and performed by:
John Paul Jones
Takehisa Kosugi
Sonic Youth

I wanted to go to that so much.

I'm really excited to see this-- I got tickets for the Sat. night show. I also got tickets for the No Fun Fest. I think sometimes us New Yorker's take for granted the amount of shows the band plays around the area.

I think it should be pointed one of those nights there will be a post show q n a session, and I think SY might be taking part in it. If I remember right, this is after the friday night show.

a few predictions for the SY/JPJ/TK/MC show:
 

stage lights fade up on the debut of SY's newly customized amplifiers with newly woven navajo blankets bearing each member's symbol from Daydream Nation LP replacing the standard black or sparkle grill cloth. A transparent plexiglass drumset bears Steve's symbol.

1st act: John Paul Jones, Kim Gordon, and Mark Ibold each weilding scissors with extra-long blades cut up 3 copies of bass-tablature for the LZ song "Whole Lotta Love", randomly paste the pieces back together blindfolded, then each play their new cut-up bass parts simultaneously, while the Merce Cunninham Dance Company flips coins at guitars left on to buzz and feedback, only occasionally hitting a string.

2nd act: Lee and Thurston make explicit the connections between Jimmy Page's psych-out violin bow Dazed & Confus(ion/ed) workouts and just about every heavy duty sonic brakdown/blowout, utilizing custom made violin bows made from oplical prisms that cause rainbow trails around their guitars and distortions in space and time. Thuston in poppy suit, Lee in stars and planets suit. Kim in dragon suit teaches the dancers some schoolyard hopscotch moves.

3rd act: Steve Shelly, shirtless in wig and false beard, plays a truely twisted take on Moby Dick with heavily dealyed and phased drum sounds sent through all the band's amps, and swirling around the audience in surround sound, while Thruston with curled hair, midriff shirt, and too-tight pants sings his poems in bad Robert Plant imitation voice, and Takehisa Kosugi types out the score to "+/-" on musical calculator stolen from Kraftwork's practise space.

4th act: all performers join audience and tangle up a truely massive supply of old used guitar strings until someone gets hurt. Everyone has to have a tetnus shot afterwards.

Curtain

Sonic Youth, John Paul Jones Compose Dance Piece

March 10, 2009 04:50 PM ET





David J. Prince, N.Y.
Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and alternative rock legends Sonic Youth have collaborated on an original musical piece for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and will perform together in Brooklyn, N.Y. in April. "Nearly Ninety," a new full length work composed by Sonic Youth, Jones and mixed-media sound composer Takehisa Kosugi, will debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 16, Merce Cunningham's 90th birthday.

The piece and its debut performances are part of "Merce Cunningham at 90," a four day festival celebrating the choreographer's work and influence. After its world premiere at BAM, "Nearly Ninety" will travel to Madrid, Champaign-Urbana, Paris, Berkeley, and London.

A long-time champion of improvisation and collaboration in dance, Cunningham and his dance company have worked with a number of musicians for past performances, including Radiohead, John Cage, and Sigur Ros.

Jones first performed with Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2005, when he appeared as a guest musician with the Company’s in London. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore performed with the Company in the late 1990's.

John Paul Jones and Sonic Youth perform with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, April 16-19. More info is available at bam.org.

aghrrr, another NY thing I should go for...

It's a shame, in a way, about the involvement of John Paul Jones - I suspect that it will mean that no non-bootleg recording of the collaboration will ever see the light of day.

I just keep thinking this a joke. I can't take it seriously.

dance

Merce is too cool. First he gets to have sex with John Cage and now Sonic Youth honor him.

maybe after this gig Sonic Youth and the 3 remaining Zeppelins will realize how much they need eachother and do a series of tripple-vinyl poly-gatefold SYR mega-jammmerz and tour the nation in a fleet of vintage customized vans (belching clouds of newly legalized marijuana smoke) with ridiculous airbrush art and singlehandedly revitalize the economy by uniting classic rockers and indie/noise/mess rockers in fist pumping motions visible from space.

nobody responded to my prediction of what the set would be like.

Wednesday, April 15,2009 Lord Have Merce

Sonic Youth and other music pals play 90-year-old Cunningham’s birthday bash




By Joshua David Stein

 

The Merce Cunningham Company Dancers rehearse with the nearly 90-year-old choreographer. Sonic Youth wouldn't seem like a good birthday party band for most 90-year-olds. But Merce Cunningham isn’t your average nonagenarian. He doesn’t go in for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and pudding. But what more would you expect from the man who continually reaffirms his relevance as the most important modern dance choreographer since Martha Graham?

For his 90th birthday, Merce has invited some friends—among them Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth—to drop by BAM for three days from April 16 to 19 for a jam, and maybe some tea and biscuits too.
Also stopping by: Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and mixed-media sound composer Takehisa Kosugi. Oh, and of course, the Merce Cunningham Company dancers.The event also functions as the pre miere of Nearly Ninety. It’s 89 minutes long. Ol’ Merce is pretty funny for an old guy.
Since the 1950s, when Cunningham began his choreographic career and long fruitful collaboration with composer John Cage, he has done away with staid conventions as dancing to music, dance as narrative and the entire idea that a performance is distinct from creation. Instead, Cunningham has relied on chance procedures to bring movement, music and dance and dancers into fruitful contact.

“The beauty of what Merce does is, it’s happening live and can’t be recreated the same way from night to night,” Ranaldo explains.Therefore, it’s not possible to write a “preview” of a Merce Cunningham dance performance any more than it’s possible to predict if a piece of bread will fall butterside up in a Tilt-a-Whirl caught in a tornado. I won’t even try. I don’t know what to expect at the Howard Gilman Opera House this week any more than any of the other collaborators do.Which is to say, I have a general idea that it will be excellent, but I can’t say exactly why.The only thing to be done is to sketch out the structure, identify the moving parts and maintain faith that a fortuitous wind will animate the structure come opening night.

According to Trevor Carlson, Executive Director of the Merce Cunningham Company, “Each time Merce makes a new piece, we all sort of come together to talk about it. And since it was Merce’s birthday, we sort of said, ‘Let’s go for it!’” So Merce asked his buddy John Paul Jones, who has worked for the company before, and Sonic Youth, members of which had also worked with the company in the past, along with Takehisa Kosugi, the musical director of the company, and asked them each to create 30 minutes of music.

Then he contacted architect Benedetta Tagliabue (wife of the late great Catalan architect, Enric Miralles) to craft a sculpture that would hold the three groups of musicians on stage. Italian fashion designer Romeo Gigli was asked to create the costumes for the piece. Ranaldo was surprised and chuffed to be asked. “It came out of the blue that we were invited to do this,” he says. “But I’ve been a huge fan of his work pretty much since I moved to New York in 1979.”

So Sonic Youth said of course it would participate. So did everyone else. And then everyone went on their separate paths and pretty much forgot about each other. “None of the projects will come together until the day before the performance in their entirety at the dress rehearsal,” says Trevor. “Merce called John Paul Jones to say, ‘Thank you for accepting to compose the piece. I’ll see you in April.’” And that was that.


Sonic Youth set about creating its 30 minutes loosely. “We are going to create different chunks based on basic gestures of principles of attack, loud, soft, aggressive, different things like that,” explains Ranaldo. John Paul Jones, he says, is scoring his piece out in a much more traditional way, though Ranaldo notes he has no idea what his work sounds like. Kosugi, as Kosugi does, has divided his 30 minutes of highly electronic music into eight- or nine-minute discreet chunks. According to Trevor, the music will be cut up, patched back together, overlapped, spliced, separated and mixed according to chance-based procedures.Who knows what it will sound like.
As far as the movements go, well, Merce’s style is Merce’s style. It’s a dry and very difficult blend of chance-based movement—right leg high, left shoulder tilted, head held askew—and a rigorous training in the Graham technique, which gives the moments a fluid and sharp, suspended quality. It’s movement for movement’s sake, stripped of any narrative signifiers. And yet, it’s still oddly moving.

A certain cognitive dissonance occurs when watching all the randomly generated parts of Merce’s choreography move with one other.There’s no story or emotion lurking behind the dance, and yet so strong is the human need to sculpt a narrative, that one is woven from the disjointed fabric of the dance.

If you’ve recently been dumped, perhaps you’ll read the haunting electronic beeps and boops of Kosugi’s score—coupled with the contractions of the dancers—as a study of loss and sadness. If you are getting a large tax refund, you might focus on the joy in the frenzied synergy. If you’re young and green, you might read the piece as an inspirational cry that age doesn’t hamper vitality.

The story isn’t just Merce’s; but it isn’t just yours, either. It’s a combination of chance and talent that, like Almost Ninety, will never be repeated again.
> Merce Cunningham at 90
April 16 (spring gala), 17, 18 & 19. BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave., 718-636- 4100; Thurs. 7; Fri.-Sat. 7:30; Sun. 3 p.m., $20-$75.

Funny story in relation to this. I work at a bike shop a few blocks away from BAM. Earlier today a woman that works at BAM stopped by our shop. She wanted to know if she could borrow one of our bike pumps, as Merce Cunningham's wheelchair tires needed some air.

All of that said, I'm happy to say I've had a minor role in this production.

anyone else going to this? im flying to NYC tonight for friday's show....

I'd like to but not sure. Are they playing a few songs, full set?

How much should I say? Do you want to be surprised? It was awesome, I loved it. Going 2 more times later this weekend, so yeah, I recommend it.

Surprise is no issue - it'll change each day - Jones says he just has his piece mapped out ... so. Tell away!

Here's a GREAT review from a Led Zeppelin site.

I went lest night. I don't know if it's just me, but I didn't get it. It sounded like they gave Kosugi a bunch of random stuff to make noise with and he told JPJ and Sonic Youth to make a lot of noise and get some feedback. I guess Merce Cunningham's thing is having people dance wierd to noise. It was great if you're into that but for me, a huge Zeppelin fan who paid $60 to see JPJ play some music, I was kinda disappointed. After the show I waited around to see if I could possibly meet JPJ but had no luck. It wasn't the best night for me, as I also spent a half an hour driving around trying to find the Physical Graffiti building to find out that it no longer exists.

Hahahahahahahaaaaaa.....

"Didn't get it !!!" LOL

The Physical Graffiti building still exists. It just doesn't have all those people's faces in the windows. How the hell did he miss that? You can Google the address instantly.

Are we rolling Jimi?

http://www.artsjournal.com/tobias/20...ld_master.html

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ninety-at-bam/

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/sty...for-merce.html

http://guestofaguest.com/nyc-events/...ningham-at-90/








http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories..._bam_gala.html

 

http://www.spin.com/articles/sonic-youth-zeppelin-bassist-back-dance-company

 

http://www.nypress.com/blog-3916-merce-celebrates-90-sonic-youth-dig-in-at-bam-gala.html

http://blogs.wnyc.org/culture/2009/04/17/performance-club-old-dog-new-tricks/

 

hehe, that picture is funny.

cheers for info!

It's a shame, in a way, about the involvement of John Paul Jones

Apart from his Zep day job, he is/was quite the session man, world musician.
He seems to be a real solid bloke too, humble...

I've no problem with JPJ for artistic reasons, just that I find it hard to imagine that what would probably make an interesting SYR would get a release because of lawyers and the like.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com:80/arch...cunningha.html

wow. that looks interesting...that stage (I don't even know how to call it)