ND: Hello I'm Nancy Dalva I'm here at the
Skirball Center with Rashaun Mitchell to
discuss the Merce Cunningham Centennial
program here at this theater hi Rashaun
RM: Hi Nancy ND: tell me about the program
RM: well
there's three choreographers Mina
Nishimura, Netta Yerushalmy, and Moriah
Evans excuse me who are all creating new
works in response to Merce Cunningham
and the proposal is really open and I
don't know exactly what they're doing
they're all deeply entrenched in their
processes right now and I'm getting
glimpses of things that they're doing
but it will be a shared bill and there
will also be two performers performing
Cunningham choreography Shayla-Vie Jenkins
and Keith Sabado and Davison Scandrett
is doing the lighting for the entire
thing and it is just an experiment in
seeing kind of how versus legacy and
Merces influence resides in these
particular women but also as a proxy for
kind of the larger contemporary
landscape so... ND: And what do you do? RM: I'm
doing this I'm talking to you I mean I
essentially am acting as curator guest
curator I suppose I am a trustee on
the Cunningham Trust and so one of the
sort of mandates of the trust is to kind
of preserve and enhance Merce's work and
of course we are in the centennial year
so he would have been a hundred now and
there are lots of different
programs happening throughout the world
this entire year of different scales and
types and when I became a trustee I
think I just you know I was trying to
think about what I could bring to the
table that wasn't already there maybe
and it was clear to me that the
Centennial would certainly consist of a
lot of very typical things that we would
expect you know the repertory being
performed right there's lots of
companies that are performing the work
there's lots of freelance dancers that
are performing the work there's this
huge you know Night of 100 Solos that's
happening ND: This is happening in three
theaters the same day Merce's 100th
birthday in London, in Brooklyn, and in
Los Angeles and performers almost all
previously unacquainted with
Cunningham's work are performing solos
that are being put into an event so that
many solos will happen at the same time
and it's all being live-streamed so if
you're really dedicated you could see
the whole thing and it's just so
ambitious this project Night of 100 Solos
and it's very exciting and two of
your dancers on this program are performing
parts of that that's right Cori Kresge
and Eleanor Hullihan are both in Night of 100 Solos and they both have danced in my
work ND: And are they in this program? RM:
They're not in this program but Keith
Sabado is in the Night RM: But Keith Sabado
oh that's what you mean yeah Keith
Sabado and Shayla-Vie Jenkins are both
performing in Night of 100 Solos at BAM
and have agreed to also perform their
solos at Skirball and one
of the beautiful things about the Night
of 100 Solos is that all of the
dancers that have agreed to do the
project have been given a license to
perform their solos that they've learned
for the next two years so it's a nice
way to think about the future and to
give them opportunities to perform the
work ND: Did you stage any of these solos? 
 RM: I did I taught eight different solos
four of them in New York and four of
them in London which I just got back
from London and Daniel Squire is
directing the London event and
Patricia Lent is directing the New York
event ND: All of these people are former
Cunningham dancers who know stage Merce's work  RM: Right that's right and I just you
know I went to London and taught these solos
in an environment that was really
remarkable actually
the rehearsal process was happening at
the Wayne McGregor Studios
it's a beautiful open sort of white
space and all of the dancers that were
enlisted to do this are from different
companies the Rambert Company
Scottish Ballet different freelance
dancers and so it was a real nice mix of
people and artists and bodies and
interests and backgrounds and everyone
kind of exchanging at the same time and
everyone working simultaneously in the
same room which was really fascinating  
 ND: It does sound
that there's a baseline technical
facility in that group RM: Oh yeah I mean I
didn't have anything to do with the
casting of any of these well that's not
true I did recommend some people but
certainly in order to do Merce's work
successfully there's a certain technical
level of proficiency that one needs or
is ideal and all of these dancers have
that right so that's sort of the
baseline but then getting them to that
place in a very short amount of time
where the work actually looks like the
work that's a different challenge
ND: Had you danced all the things you coached?         RM: I had danced all the things I coached
yes
a lot of the solos that I taught were
Merce's roles actually so I taught a
little bit from "Crises" I taught a solo
from "Square Game" I taught two different
solos from "Antic Meat" something from
"Split Sides" my solo from "Nearly 90" I
think there's a couple of other ones in
there, taught a "Changing Step" solo
actually to Danny McCusker which was
really quite fun to do
I didn't perform that solo very much but
it was one of those solos that was like
a training material for
new dancers coming into the company  ND: So in some cases you're passing on
material that you acquired directly for
Merce and you are now transferring it or
transmitting it to a next generation or
across generations and some of these
dancers are after all your own age.
Do you feel there's a special
responsibility in any way when the role
was Merce's? RM: I mean I think there's a
special responsibility period. ND: That's a good answer. RM: No really because you know it's certainly
relatively easy to teach a step right
you know you can break it down to the
building block of the material itself
and a lot of people are skilled at
learning a step in a series of steps but
there's this other kind of underlying
information or mysterious kind of aspect
of the work that has to be transmitted
to and that's a lot harder. ND: Rashaun
Mitchell you have now gotten to the
questions that I wrote down to ask you
without my asking them which is what
makes up Cunningham besides
steps RM: Oh my God it's such a fascinating
question isn't it? ND: I would like you to
talk about intention,
phrasing, and that within any given
phrase or what Merce would say "how to
get from here to there" there are choices
for you and that might even change
from performance to performance that kind of
thing so when you coach
once the steps are there how do you
convey the rest? RM: Well it's tricky it's
complicated it's imperfect and I think I
have a lot of anxiety about it actually
when I'm in the moment because there's a
part of me that wants to remain as
neutral as possible and to just deliver
the information that I was given
ND: But you were given that information in
the Cunningham studio by Cunningham so
there's all this... RM: Or by the anointed teachers and stagers of the work that I learned yes
ND: We could say that Merce knew how to draw
out the qualities that he wanted and he
knew what he wanted and if you look in
the notes you can see it might have
been a pretty complex thing he wanted
he could get that just by giving
stage directions RM: Because he was who he
was
and for me the way that he spoke
to me and the way that he coached me and
directed me the language that he used
was always pretty anatomical or sort of
energetic maybe never
you know narrative or metaphorical or
image-based just super matter of fact
right and yet I think as a dancer in
the work you arrive through the
repetition of
it's so much repetition but through the
repetition of the work you arrive at
some other kind of meaning I think in
yourself that does get that is palpable
right and so how do you transmit that I
think that's a really interesting
question ND: And then there's another thing
which is more technical perhaps which
are elements of stagecraft which don't
have to do with steps but at which I
consider you to be the supreme exponent
for example how to get the audience to
look where you want them to look. Are
they looking at your foot? Are they
looking into the wings? How do you direct
where they're looking and when do you
look at them? When I look at your videos
I can see that this is part of how you
dance RM: Well I think maybe it would be
good to tell a story I when I first got
into the company there was a very very
very short period of transmission time
between Ashley Chen who I replaced and
myself and he taught me all of his
repertory in a very short amount of time
and the situation is so pressured and
precious and I remember often
learning something and not quite knowing
it yet and being thrust in front of
Merce to show the material and there
was something it's such a strong
memory in my mind because of the
sort of pressure of the situation and I
remember thinking like ok you know you
don't know what you're doing at all so
how do you manage that how do you
negotiate that and there was a certain
sort of survival strategy that I
developed in the beginning to somehow
convey that I knew what I was doing
without actually knowing and somehow it
was legible or passable until I was able
to actually fully integrate all of the movement
because it is very complex movement to coordinate
generally speaking and I feel like there
was something about intentionality
there's something about maybe the tone
in the body there's...
there's an energy a sensibility
that is developed through the training
system and through being in front of
Merce ND: When you go like this that's one
of the qualities which is that even when
still you are moving
the current of energy across the body never stops
stillness is just another kind of
moving. RM: Right yes and so for me I feel
like I didn't necessarily think about
this when I was dancing the work but now
that I've moved past that and I'm doing a
lot of reflecting and looking at the
archives and digging into these
questions of legacy and like what
remains and the question
is like really for me what is the work
because I feel that the most obvious
answer is that the repertory it's the
step but for me there's that's a little
hallow feels like a fossil or like a art
object of some kind versus this
mysterious kind of underlying
information that is present in the
performer and also the larger idea
of the work you know Merce's philosophy
is his methodologies his process I
was trying to talk about what the work
what I what I'm trying to get at about
what the work is because without the
life force of the artist without the
sort of apparatus of the whole system
that has created the environment the
collaborators the sort of like ethical
concerns the methodologies like all of
that for me is the work
and it builds into the thing that gets
seen as the product ND: Yes so the
performance is the tip of an iceberg
there's the studio at Westbeth there's all
the dancers who have come before and move in and out of course you. RM: And there's his notation system
that we now have more access to you know
a lot of his notes in the way that he
worked were not available to us when he
was alive and now that he's passed you
know people are digging into the notes
and looking at each piece and sort of
starting to kind of open up or
understand what was at play what
questions he had in each piece you know and
how you know for instance how did he use
the chance procedures you know I think
it's a really huge misconception that
people have ND: Let's address this
conception that people think that you
were making that up in the wings. RM: Ya no people say that often
like "oh you were improvising" or
"you kind of just did whatever you wanted"
or Merce just rolled a dice to like
make all the decision it's like no
that's not ND: So let's return to something
earlier that you said which was that
people doing this now are entrenched
in this process yeah and I think there's this
notion that somehow Merce was a very
processie person in the studio but
he did all of that before he came
in he used chance at some point or points
in the making of every work but once he
decided it was done with
rare exception. RM: Yeah and by the time it
got to us it was already a relatively
fixed thing and of course there's
interpretation
and there's things that get
lost or or gained in transmission but
pretty much the step that was delivered
to us was usually transmitted verbally
by the time in my era by the time I was
there yeah because he wasn't really able
to move his body in the same way so
there was a real clarity always
ND: Your generation was able to make his thoughts
visible it went from his words into your
performing it was an extraordinary ability you all developed I think
RM: Well
I think by the time you know in my
generation he was a different Merce than
I think he was prior and I think we all
sort of had a more sort of loving
grandfatherly relationship to him so I
don't know if that engendered something
in the work but that's an interesting
point earlier dancers have noted with
some asperity that you got a different Merce.
RM: I think we got
a better deal maybe in some levels. ND: I was
very pleased to hear you say Mercer
would have been 100 because the idea
that he is 100 seems strange to me
because he isn't to me he's as we last
knew him at 90 but he's also all the
ages he ever was that you now can
consider him... RM: He's exponential. ND: It's the
continuum of his entire life but also we
now can stand back and see the repertory
as a whole so standing here now in this
place that you're in where you're a
choreographer yourself you have your own
work your own company
doing all these things with the trust
what is your survival strategy for
keeping Merce in your mind as he was. RM: I don't try to do that. ND: What do you do or
you just don't think about it? RM: I mean I
do think about it I think I've had
different strategies over different
points in time and a lot of them have to
do with my own physiology and what's
going on in my body and how my body is
responding to emotion some of it has to
do with the choreographic questions that
I find myself asking in my own work and
always there's the understanding
that like I am inevitably and forever
linked to him and so on some level
whatever I do or make is often
seen through the lens of him and so I
think in certain pieces that I've made
I've tried to address that in certain
pieces I mean I tried to ignore that
I've tried to go really far the way I've
tried to go back to the scene of the
crime and kind of uncover things and
rearrange things and I guess that means
that I'm interested in this idea of
legacy in this idea of influence and
this idea of like passing things on and
how we evolve as a society as a
culture as individuals and I think I
those questions are always present and I
think I am in this place now where I'm
like transferring those questions over
to other people to see how they handle
it and to see if they might illuminate
something to me that I haven't been able
to discover yet and so I think all of
these choreographers are not the most
obvious choice right it's like in terms
of thinking about who's influenced by
Merce Cunningham I mean you could say
Pam Tanowitz or you could say Sarah
Michelson or you could say a lot of
other people. ND: Liz Gerring. RM: Liz Gerring. ND: Or even
choreographers who are of a much older generation like Trisha Brown. RM: Exactly
yeah and of course all of the people
that danced for him that are
choreographers you know Kimberly Bartosik and
Jonah Bokaer like different people Neal
Greenberg I mean there's lots of people
that could have been asked to do this
but I feel like... ND: Douglas Dunn. RM: Douglas Dunn exactly
but I feel like I wanted to choose and
think about people that weren't the most
obvious choice and to see if we could
uncover slightly more like invisible
threads. ND: Well there's I want to think
about two things that I thought about
your work after Merce the first one was
I went to Boston to see your staging
of "How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run" at the ICA and
I realized what an amazing stager you
were of the work. RM: Well that was the first
staging project I ever did.
ND: And then I went to see your own work and
I was just it was such a revelation to
me because I'd seen you dancing
Merce's roles and I had just thought
you were like that and when I saw
you as yourself in your own work
oh my goodness he's just entirely
different that was truly performance it
was a sublime not an impersonation but
an embodiment of someone else's
qualities I hadn't realized how what an
advanced activity and acting that was
until I saw you as yourself. RM: Yeah well it's interesting because when I
used to do when I was you know you take
class every day right as a dancer and
certainly in that work and the
technique is the thing that you know
it's a formula you know and you repeat
the same exercises every day with slight
variations right and I just remember
like always feeling like I would start
the class not knowing exactly who I was
or what I felt and just going through
some kind of motions but like somehow
in the process like arriving at myself
like it's almost like identity forming
to do the class in a weird way so like
there was a sort of stretch of
embodiment that happened every day over
and over again
right but that accumulates over time and
I feel like some of the work like the
more abs- I don't wanna use that word
but some of the more complex later
works are considered to be more
abstract than some of the earlier work. ND: They're less narrative the subliminal narrative is
even more so submerged. RM: But to do "Crises" for
instance required me to be an actor like
that's the thing and it wasn't explicitly relayed to
me in that way it's just that as I was
learning it and as we were all like
collaboratively trying to arrive at the
thing that we thought it could be I felt
like oh I have to actually tap into
something that is completely outside of
this technique actually and completely
outside of everything that I've learned
about this work it's like I'm drawing
from some other place and I think we all
do that as dancers and as performers
we're always drawing from different
places sometimes consciously sometimes
unconsciously but I think it's like that
that's the stickiness there I think that
is the work almost and when dealing with
transmission I'm dealing with like
having to teach these roles to different
people who never met him or didn't see
the work or haven't trained I do have to
almost kind of relay my own experiential
knowledge in a different way
ND: One of the things that Cunningham's
dancers got to do over time was move
backwards in time like wizards and dance
through the repertory and always
the dancers moving backwards found the
dances and always the dancers who moved
backwards found the work easier than
the dancers had come into it originally
because the technique got so much more
complex. RM: Oh I could actually disagree
slightly I disagree because
I feel like or I think I disagree if I
understand what you said correctly you
know I feel like in my generation we got
really good at moving very fast and
doing lots of complicated isolated
movements and really intricate rhythms
like that was our thing you know and
when we were asked to go back to the
sixties and do these sort of like more
austere or kind of like more full-bodied
you know actions we were, we weren't very good at it
it was like putting on a different outfit you
know and trying it's not quite fitting
right so that's how I felt about it
actually I asked Merce about it I said
is it important that the dancers have
danced through the repertory he said "oh yes"
I want to mention another piece of yours
"Interface" where to my interpretive
mind you asked yourself what didn't
Merce choreograph for and the answer was
the face so you extended the act of
choreography to the face and I thought
that was a radical extension of what you
were already doing and so that fits in
with your part of your description of
what you do now I think it might be
important as long as we're here on
camera to say what did you do here at
NYU. RM: Oh yeah well I teach in the dance
department at Tisch School of the Arts
where I'm also the associate chair and
I've been there for seven years and I've
had a trajectory of teaching that has
really shifted over time first coming in
really as a Cunningham teacher and that
was what I was hired to do but then
immediately sensing some friction about
teaching a technique like archaic
technique to a younger generation of
people who have no access to
the work and so being confronted with
this question of how to make it relevant
and whether it should even be relevant I
don't know there's a lot of questions
that I have there but just how to create
access points to the work has been
something of interest for me and I've
done a lot of work in trying to
expand the technique to kind of like
unpack it to kind of like infuse it with
other newer ideas and other kind of
stylistic interests. ND: It's a fusion now. RM: It's a
fusion and I think that Merce would have
actually liked that I don't think that,
I don't think that is, I
think that Merce was a fluid person and
I think Merce was someone who was always
changing and progressing and growing and
I think that he would have wanted his
technique to continue to grow as well I
don't think it was a solidified object
but you know you can argue with me there.
ND: I would argue with two points I would say that the technique is
not archaic
it may be archaic in the context in which you teach. RM: That's what I mean. It's not archaic to me. ND: Because this is a
very postmodern
and forward-looking dance department
but in the Cunningham workshops and in
the classes that are held we see that
learning this archaic technique as you put it makes anyone a better dancer to do anything so
is it's a toolkit. RM: Yeah and all of
this the choreographers that are on this
program have trained in Cunningham in
different ways I mean Mina, Mina and I
met when I was an understudy at the
studio and she was you know an
international student there and so
I've known her for 20 years and she
trained in that technique for many years
and you would never really know it
because you we think of her is this like
butoh artist and this postmodern
dancer but I think that there's like you
can sense it in her sense of time in her
imagination she's got a wild imagination
I mean you can feel it in these other
ways that are not so obvious in terms of
like line shape you know. ND: With Netta
I don't feel that when I see her
dance
I work but when you see her in Pam Tanowitz you see the Cunningham
in there. RM: And she's got this like bold
kind of ambitious really kind of
in-your-face sensibility that I think
also has some crossover with Merce and
then Moriah you know is also you know
been a dancer for a long time and has
taken classes at the studio and has
taken workshops and so she's you know
she also has access points as well but I
think her work is for me the
overlap there is more of a conceptual
thing and it really like sort of
rigorous mental exercise and she
creates these really elaborate notation
systems and there's a certain like
driving pulse in her work that I think I
relate to Merce as well so I think all
three of these choreographers you know
you'll see the influences in very
different ways which I hope at least.
ND: I'm thinking of you saying what Merce would
have liked or not liked and I think that
you're in a place where you can state
that because you had a long relationship with him. RM: I am but I also got that I have to
be fair and say that you know I've had a
lot of conversations with other dancers
and the work and throughout the company
and so I'm not, these aren't
necessarily just my words like I have
spoken to Jeannie Steele who as you know
was dancer for a long time and super
close to him
and she has told me that he said that he
understood that people might be able to
prove on his original ideas in terms of
the technique itself so I find that to
be like super galvanizing. RM: Yes
I would say from my own point of view
that when people say Merce would have
loved this I say and they say don't you
think and I say well I can't say what
Merce would think or say or do in the
present I think you might be able to say
that but I can't but what I can tell you
is what Merce did say  and did do and just as important Rashaun
what Merce didn't say and
didn't do what he didn't do is an
enormously important thing that I only
realized when he's gone when he was
in the room there were things people
didn't do their liberties people
wouldn't take but I do know that one
thing he said and he said it to Robert Swinston
his very longtime assistant do
something else
and I think that... RM: Keep
going. ND: Keep going keep going and do
something else and this is exactly what
you're doing. RM: This is something else.
ND: So for mercy's birthday we do something
else and yeah you can go see companies
perform the repertory and do it so
beautifully. RM: And you could engage with
the work on different levels too I think
is what is important for me to convey to
people is that it's not just one
monolithic thing there's actually all of
these layers and different contexts for
engaging in his work. ND: I went to
Leon to see "Exchange" a beautiful work of
Merce's which I hadn't seen for a very
long time in which I'd never seen him in
although there's a beautiful film with him in it
and he keeps striking the warrior pose.
Was Merce a warrior?
RM: Well I would that's one of those
questions and I would throw back at you
that you would hate but is he a warrior? It seems like you think of him that
way I I don't necessarily think of him
that way but he certainly was someone
that you know could persevere. ND: That's
what I was going to say he was so
persevering. RM: He's a beautiful example of
just like keeping going
and like the accumulation of knowledge
over time I mean I think that's beautiful
ND: If he was a warrior, I think what he was
battling with were the restrictions of age
and making his world larger not
smaller
and the reason he could do that was
because you all were in the room. RM: And now we're not. ND: Well on that sentimental note
I will add that I am the scholar in
residence of the Merce Cunningham Trust
and I invite you to look at the Trust's
wonderful YouTube channel this summer
we're releasing ten videos that have
been saved for Merce's Centennial and one
of them is a full-length performance of
"Square Game" filmed at Ann Arbor Michigan
with Rashaun Mitchell in Merce's role and
it is spectacular. RM: In a purple unitard no less.
ND: You were wearing some pants. RM: Yeah, I am. ND: Admit that there are pants. RM: There are pants.
ND: It's been such a pleasure to have a
chance to visit with you here at
Skirball I know that this will inform
people who are coming to the show before
and also after and we also invite you to
follow us on social media
and thank you very much. RM: Thanks Nancy. ND: Always a pleasure.
