Surplus Dance Theater Presents Four Monday Evenings
  • ephemera
  • offset-printed
  • black-and-white
  • 24.2 x 31.8 cm.
  • [1] pp.
  • edition size unknown
  • unsigned and unnumbered

Surplus Dance Theater Presents Four Monday Evenings

Lucinda Childs, Judith Dunn, Deborah Hay, Robert Morris, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Hay

Surplus Dance Theater Presents Four Monday Evenings

description

Single sided flyer / poster published in conjunction with performances held at Stage 73, New York City, on February 10 and 17 featuring new works by Lucinda Childs, Judith Dunn, Deborah Hay, Robert Morris, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, and Robert Rauschenberg; and March 2 and 9, 1964 with new works by Alex Hay, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, and Deborah Hay. "A SERIES of four Monday night performances by the Surplus Dance Theater began last night at Stage 73, 321 East 73d Street. The program offered works by Judith Dunn, Lucinda Chills, Alex Hay, Robert Rauschenberg, Deborah Hay, Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton. These are representative names from the list of the farthest-out in the avantgarde of the dance world, and all have figured in dance programs presented during the last two years at Judson Memorial Church in Washington Square. Mr. Paxton, arranger of the two programs that are to be given two performances each at Stage 73, may be considered the founder and proprietor of the Surplus Dance Theater. He wanted to present "commercial" programs of avant-garde dance (the entertainments at Judson have been free) and has therefore selected what he hopes will please a paying public. Whether he has been successful remains to be seen. This paying public must understand at the outset that dance as it is generally thought of gets short shrift from the avant$gardists.. There is movement in what they do and sometimes a lot of it — much walking, running, jumping, turning, and so on. But most of this is naturalistic rather than stylized, and occasionally it is so unremarkable or so slight that it goes almost unrecognized. Most of Miss Dunn''''s 15minute "Acapulco" shows a woman walking to a chair to brush the hair of a girl seated in it. This is done in just about the slowest slow$motion possible. If the scene had been painted rather than analyzed in movement it would have qualified as "pop" art. Mr. Paxton suggests that we are animated clothes racks by taping clothes hooks to his cheest and back and hanging his jacket, shirt and trousers to them while he executes fixed series of posts and isolated athletic movements. (Seven minutes). In "Colorado Plateau," Mr. Hay moves six persons around the stage as if they were plaster mannequins. He lifts them or drags them to the vertical or horizontal positions specified by his own voice recorded on tape. Mr. Rauschenberg, a painter, makes pictures on walls, curtains and on the audience with a flashlight attached to his leg. He probably has a lot of fun during the 11 minutes he does th this, but the paying customers may not. Mr. Morris, another painter, stands at a lectern and for six minutes mouths the words of a pre-recorded excerpt about esthetics. In Miss Rainer''''s "Dialogues," she and other dancers speak a not quite nonsense text that sometimes rolls along the manner of Gertrude Stein. During this 15minute group work, three men run from the back of the theater to the rear stage wall time after time. You never know why. The works of Miss Childs and Miss Hay have a considerable amount of movement that should look dancelike to almost anyone. At its best, this program makes one aware of movement detail we seldom take time to observe in daily life. Some of it is aborbing, some silly and aborbing, some only siliy, At its worst it is merely tiresome. It is typical of the avantgarde dance people at work, however, and it may make more sense than you think. It will be given again next Monday evening." -- Allen Hughes, "Dance: An Avant-Garde Series Begins," in The New York Times, February 11, 1964.

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