Choreography: Merce Cunningham
Lighting: Beverly Emmons
Filmed projections by Stan VanDerBeek
Video manipulations by Nam June Paik
This is the first commerical release of John Cage’s Variations V, from the legendary studio production made by NDR German Television, Hamburg, in 1967.
It marks an early pinnacle in recorded Cage/Cunningham collaborations, and is one of the few available films of a Cunningham Dance Company performance from the 1960s.
With music for an orchestra of electronic soundproducers by John Cage performed by Cage with David Tudor and Gordon Mumma to choreography by Merce Cunningham performed by Cunningham and The Merce Cunningham Dance Company, films by Stan van der Beek, and Robert Moog and technicians from Bell Laboratories developing the unique electronic “antennae” which trigger sounds as the dancers move about them — Variations V is an interactive multi-media event.
Booklet with liner notes by Gordon Mumma and Rob Haskins plus period photos.
BONUS FEATURES:
Two revealing, recently recorded interviews conducted by The Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s archivist David Vaughan with some of the dancers from the 1960s production: Carolyn Brown (founding member/dancer of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company), and Sandra Neels with Gus Solomons. The dancers reminisce over working with Cage and Cunningham, what touring was like at that time, the actual television shoot, etc.
Complete, restored, audio recording of the Paris 1966 performance (in stereo, no video).
