- Additional Authors
- Found In
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Description
- 1 streaming video file (81 min) : sound, color
- Summary
- Marilyn Wood recounts her time as a dancer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the late 50s and early 60s. She discusses her transition from art to dance student; her time at Henry Street upon first arriving in New York; meeting Merce Cunningham and John Cage; Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns' first show at Leo Castelli's gallery; Rauschenberg's decision to travel with the Company on tour. Wood then recounts her time with the Company on the road; their daily schedule in the bus while driving around the country; playing Scrabble with Cage; Rauschenberg doing his drawings for Dante's Inferno in the back of the bus; meeting Cunningham's family in Washington; performing in Berkeley and Sacramento; seeing Cage perform in Los Angeles and attending a show for Rauschenberg; performing at UCLA and the end of the tour; her pregnancy and departure from the Company; the Pocket Theatre and the premiere of Satie's Vexations. Wood circles back to the early years of the Company and discusses difficult criticism and audience reaction; the technical difficulty of Cunningham's choreography on the road to mastering it; the enjoyment that comes from performance once the movement was mastered. Wood then discusses the need for personal expression that arose after her departure from the Company; her decision to step off the stage and focus her creative work on the community and to take her energy from the street; the formation of Marilyn Wood & the Celebrations Group; her work with improvisational forms that were free, visible and accessible to anyone; building a dance vocabulary; choreographing her first major event at the Seagram building. Wood closes with gratitude for the enduring influence both Cage and Cunningham would come to have in her work.
- Alternative Title
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Moving image materials.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Video.
- Interviews.
- Nonfiction films.
- Note
- Title taken from original container label.
- Access (note)
- Patrons can access streaming video file only at the Library for the Performing Arts.
- System Details (note)
- Source (note)
- Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation
- Linking Entry (note)
- Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Call Number
- *MGZIDF 3731
- OCLC
- 905872740
- Title
Marilyn Wood [interviewed] by [Robert] Swinston.
- Production
2007.
- Country of Producing Entity
United States.
- Type of Content
two-dimensional moving image
- Type of Medium
video
computer
- Type of Carrier
online resource
- Event
Recorded 2007 June 19 location unknown.
- System Details
Streaming video.
- Original Version
Original format: 1 videocassette (MiniDV).
- Access
Patrons can access streaming video file only at the Library for the Performing Arts.
- Linking Entry
Forms part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Source
Gift; Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, 2011-2012.
- Connect to:
- Added Author
Wood, Marilyn, 1929- interviewee.
Swinston, Robert, interviewer.
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation donor.
- Added Title
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. Moving image materials.
- Found In:
Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.
- Research Call Number
*MGZIDF 3731