Malfunctioning ‘eyeSpace’
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Merce Cunningham’s weeklong season at the Joyce Theater opened Tuesday night. Although it was the evening’s world premiere, “eyeSpace,” that was hyped in advance, largely because of the iPods the audience would be required to use, it was instead a revival of Cunningham’s 1960 “Crises” that proved the evening’s highlight.
The program opened with “Scenario Minevent.” For years, Mr. Cunningham has staged “Events,” evening-length medleys of segments of his works. This ‘Minevent” consists of excerpts from the original “Scenario,” first shown in 1997; this suite was first presented earlier this year.
The pitted old bricks of the back wall of the Joyce stage provided the only backdrop necessary. Designer Rei Kawakubo dressed both the men and women in striped sleeveless sheath dresses. That didn’t seem particularly odd, but what made the costumes and the piece itself a little freaky were the inflatable excrescences attached to the clothes, which encased the dancers in strategically placed bustles and bubbles and tire tubes. The musicians — sound engineers, really — sat in front of the stage, manipulating distorted environmental sounds by Takehisa Kosugi. But, as always in Mr. Cunningham’s work, the dancers moved independently of the sound cues.
“Scenario Minevent,” engages the entire Cunningham troupe, and traffics in the hallmarks of Mr. Cunningham’s later work. The dancers cluster in asymmetrical configurations. They launch into stag leaps and coup-de-pied positions — one foot curled around the opposite ankle. There are overlapping entrances and exits, pitches and tilts, sudden flurries and flutters of movement. Juxtaposed movements are as independent and divergent from each other as the ensemble is impervious to the aural accompaniment. Stage pictures display contrasting elements, from frozen stillness, to regimented movement, to abrupt and sometimes spasmodic beats.
Mr. Cunningham’s vocabulary has become increasingly balletic over the years, but what he creates based on the vocabulary bears no resemblance to ballet. The balletic plié into relevé continuum is fractured in Mr. Cunningham’s syntax: The sink into the ground isn’t usually allowed to organically generate the rise onto the ball of the foot. Despite the many supported movements, the politesse and tenderness of ballet partnering has been removed, replaced by cool, efficient cooperation. Behind it all, though, one can sense Mr. Cunningham’s analytic interest in representing the sociological patterns of group behavior.
For all the invincible professionalism and skill of Mr. Cunningham’s choreography and his dancers’ execution, there seemed something grimly resolute about “Scenario Minevent.” Unlike “Scenario,” “Crises” is a piece that will travel easily — the five dancers wear beautifully unadorned leotards and tights designed by Robert Rauschenberg — and it likely had to in its early stages, as it dates back to the company’s station-wagon period, when it toured on a shoestring.
“Studies for Player Piano” by Conlon Nancarrow provided syncopated boogie-woogie and a significant quotient of just plain banging the keys. Rashaun Mitchell assumed Mr. Cunningham’s old satiric identity, and “Crises” consisted of a mutual exploration of personal space between him and four women. The piece contains intermittent intimation of “Beasts and Beauties,” as when Mr. Mitchell descends into a frog-like second position. And the flavors of Martha Graham — with whom Mr. Cunningham first performed — and Isadora Duncan that have been purged from Mr. Cunningham’s later work give it a sensuality absent from his more recent endeavors.
The not-quite-best was saved for last Tuesday night. Closing the program was the new “eyeSpace.” Mr. Cunningham has always made profitable use of new technologies, but the use of iPods seemed like a gimmick here. Mikel Rouse’s ambient soundtrack included subway announcements, and the audience was instructed to set the iPods to “shuffle,” which meant, presumably, that no one was tuned into exactly the same synchronization. I say “presumably,” because I couldn’t get mine to work, but fellow spectators informed me that it was a pop-sounding sonic layer. Henry Samelson designed both the backdrop and unitards, dominated by a vibrant teal blue.
Again a full company work, most of “eyeSpace,” on first viewing, seemed slight, a piece d’occasion. The end of the piece, however, contained a very good duet between Daniel Squire and Julie Cunningham, with him supporting her rear end like a sling, which showed us Mr. Cunningham again at the top of his game — precise, intricate, and quirky.
Mr. Cunningham no longer engages in the deliberate creation of theatrical personas, as he did for himself and his colleagues in “Crises.” But his sensibility and his work’s evolution were given a very good airing Tuesday night.
Until October 15 (175 Eighth Ave. at 19th Street, 212-242-0800).