So, I saw the Merce Cunningham at Krannert performance.

It was not my cup of tea.

Now, usually, when one asserts that, it usually is implied that whatever they are talking about was bad. This was not the case. I recognize that the performance was good for those who like that sort of thing, but it just didn't do anything for me.

From the program: "The two (Cunningham and his lifetime partner John Cage) also made extensive use of chance procedures, abandoning not only musical forms but also narrative and the other conventional elements of dance composition-such as cause and effect and climax and anticlimax."

That approach to dance was very much on display in the piece. The 'music' was an assortment of noises, some of which were pretty neat, but most of which were, as they were supposed to be, random. Throughout the piece, some very nice looking stage pictures were created, and the technical skill of all of the dancers was excellently showcased. But I want narrative from art. I want art to take something I know and show it to me from above, below, or a little bit off to the side. Or to reveal to me a concept completely alien to me, and to make me care about it. This show did neither, but it never claimed that it would. It struck me as similar, in concept at least, to our 'production' of Map Light last year in the Studio theatre. While, from what I heard, a very good acting exercise for those involved, and even enlightening to the actors watching, it fell short because it was inaccessible to anyone who wasn't a part of that club. In the same way, knowing nothing of dance outside of 'doing it is hard,' I was lost.

Next time, I'd like to see the actual piece the dancers would do after playing with Cunningham's technique. A show built upon a warm-up exercise on the scale of the performance I saw would be considerably better for it.

So overall, it was like a professional painter doing a piece that was simply splashes of color, but doing it with exceptional brush control, blending, and general technical skill. In spite of that skill, it would still be, just like this performance, so much color and noise on a canvas.