Vencl Dance

A new year!

Dance Review – ‘Nearly Ninety’ – Merce Cunningham at 90 – Meanings Still Pour From Movement – NYTimes.com

“The two factors that make “Nearly Ninety” exceptional, though, remain the choreography and the performances. Mr. Cunningham’s dance imagination actually appears more fertile than ever before. Onward!”

By dance critic Alastair Macaulay.
Nearly Ninety (minutes long) seemed that way to me too.  I saw the final Sunday afternoon performance.  The set lacked only sequins.  ”Pour” is exactly the right word here.
This is two pages long.

Merce Cunningham, Visionary Choreographer, Dies at 90 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com

By dance critic Alastair Macaulay
This is very informative and very well written.  It is 4 pages long.

Choreographer-Dancer Merce Cunningham Dies : NPR

Look at Pond Way.  It was choreographed in 1988 and is 22.35 minutes long.  This is not a clip.

“Pond Way can be described as one of Cunningham’s ‘nature studies’ where the movement evokes birds, animals or landscapes. It is a lyrical, contemplative and sensuous piece, with the movement, according to Cunningham, being reminiscent of the game of skimming stones over a pond, which he loved to play as a child. The production is further enriched with a backcloth from the visual artist Roy Lichtenstein and a soundscape by Brian Eno.”       ……NPR

Margaret Gosden has posted photos from the Concert on her blog,

SNAPSHOTS, VIDEO and SHORT FILM: CHANGING PLACES by Susan Vencl

This is an exciting time for me and I am finding writing about it difficult.  But the plan is to integrate the process of making the dance with that of developing the audience through building this web site.

So……

The choreography is progressing on schedule, that is 3 minutes a week and the piece is around 8 minutes from completion.  I will not break stride here.  We need a rough draft complete by end of April.  The concert is scheduled for June 18-19-20 at the Cunningham studio and the piece is an hour long.  The five dancers need to build stamina; I need to edit.  The working title for the dance is Changing Places but it needs explaining so I need to find another.

I am negotiating for rights to the music.  We have a lighting designer, Mike Riggs.

We will be holding two open rehearsals at Battery Dance, located  three blocks below Canal at 380 Broadway, 5th floor.  Dates are Thursday, April 23rd,  and Thursday, May 21st, from 12 noon to 2 PM.  Admission is free but space is limited so email me at   susan@vencldance.org   if you plan to come.  (By the way there are 95 steps up! )                       SEV   3/29/2009