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Mediatheque
Charles Atlas 查爾斯．阿特拉斯
Merce Cunningham 摩斯．康寧漢
Merce by Merce by Paik Part One: Blue Studio: Five Segments 白南準與摩斯的摩斯 第一部分：藍色工作室：五小段
1975–1976
This work explores the potential of video in creating and presenting modern dance. Choreographer Merce Cunningham developed and performed a gestural dance specifically for a television studio, where a bluescreen backdrop allowed video artist Charles Atlas to superimpose manipulated images of the dancer over found footage. The dancer performs together with his own multiplied image, responding to a dense electronic score by the pioneering video artist Nam June Paik. The soundtrack incorporates choppy, looping, and overlapped recordings, including the choreographer’s own phone conversations with the artist Jasper Johns and voiceover by the composer and Conceptual artist John Cage (with whom Cunningham frequently worked), underscoring the highly collaborative nature of the post-war New York art scene.
Cunningham and Atlas developed an approach they called ‘media dance’, where the camera became an active part of the choreography and the audience’s experience alongside the dancers themselves. Atlas left the dance company in the early 1980s and went on to make independent films exploring the intersections between dance, art, and urban subcultures; Cunningham continued to choreograph and lead the company until his death in 2009.
Cunningham and Atlas developed an approach they called ‘media dance’, where the camera became an active part of the choreography and the audience’s experience alongside the dancers themselves. Atlas left the dance company in the early 1980s and went on to make independent films exploring the intersections between dance, art, and urban subcultures; Cunningham continued to choreograph and lead the company until his death in 2009.
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