The Effects of Minimalism/Indeterminacy on the Merce Cunningham and John Cage Collaboration

Location

CSU 204

Start Date

25-4-2005 3:15 PM

End Date

25-4-2005 5:00 PM

Student's Major

Theatre and Dance

Student's College

Arts and Humanities

Mentor's Name

Julie Kerr-Berry

Mentor's Department

Theatre and Dance

Mentor's College

Arts and Humanities

Description

Minimalism is movement in both the visual and performing arts that strive to focus attention on the subject as an object, reducing its historical and expressive content to a bare minimum or art without meaning. John Cage's music stems from the idea of minimalism and expands itself into what he calls "indeterminacy." Indeterminacy means that chance operations will produce the score and performer's choices. Through Cage's study of Zen he learned about The Book of Change, I Ching. Using his charts, based on this book and the toss of three coins, Cage could layout the format of his compositions. Merce Cunningham's choreography explores the use of repetition and chance. Cunningham also used the I Ching that was passed along by Cage. He also used many other forms of choreography such as everyday movements that an untrained dancer could do, in addition to dance movements and some movements, he devised himself. (Kostelanetz, 48) This opened up a whole new world of exploration. The collaboration of Merce Cunningham and John Cage brings together two art forms using minimalism and indeterminacy. Music and dance are correlated in many ways although the arts are not always studied together. This project gave me a chance to combine both my music and dance studies into one art form.

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Apr 25th, 3:15 PM Apr 25th, 5:00 PM

The Effects of Minimalism/Indeterminacy on the Merce Cunningham and John Cage Collaboration

CSU 204

Minimalism is movement in both the visual and performing arts that strive to focus attention on the subject as an object, reducing its historical and expressive content to a bare minimum or art without meaning. John Cage's music stems from the idea of minimalism and expands itself into what he calls "indeterminacy." Indeterminacy means that chance operations will produce the score and performer's choices. Through Cage's study of Zen he learned about The Book of Change, I Ching. Using his charts, based on this book and the toss of three coins, Cage could layout the format of his compositions. Merce Cunningham's choreography explores the use of repetition and chance. Cunningham also used the I Ching that was passed along by Cage. He also used many other forms of choreography such as everyday movements that an untrained dancer could do, in addition to dance movements and some movements, he devised himself. (Kostelanetz, 48) This opened up a whole new world of exploration. The collaboration of Merce Cunningham and John Cage brings together two art forms using minimalism and indeterminacy. Music and dance are correlated in many ways although the arts are not always studied together. This project gave me a chance to combine both my music and dance studies into one art form.