{"id":521,"date":"2020-11-05T15:11:06","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T20:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/emmonsbeverly\/?p=521"},"modified":"2020-11-05T15:11:06","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T20:11:06","slug":"merce-cunningham-said-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/emmonsbeverly\/merce-cunningham-said-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Merce Cunningham said to Me&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was January of my senior year at Sarah Lawrence College, 1965.\u00a0 I had been a Dance student for 3 years and then was taking Theatre my senior year. I had worked backstage at the American Dance Festival at Conn College in New London for every summer of college and had assisted the lighting designer Tom Skelton on several projects.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Merce Cunningham had just returned from a world tour in 1964 with his company and needed a lighting designer for the next months of touring.\u00a0 Robert Rauschenberg had been doing lighting for Merce for most of 10 years but having just won the Venice Biennale was no longer available to tour. I\u2019m told that Merce had remembered John Braswell who taught stage design at SLC to ask if he would go on the next tour. John told Merce he couldn\u2019t leave his job, \u201cBut I have a student\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I met with Merce one afternoon at his studio.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThe lighting for my work should be like a day.\u00a0 It should have movement and life, but it should be like the way the tree looks different outside the window, later. It\u2019s because the sun has moved and not because something emotional has happened in the room.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally he said, \u201cIf I have my dancers up left in a tight clump I don\u2019t want you to take all the rest of the light out because, first of all it is telling the audience that I am going to be there long enough for it to be worth your while to do that and second, If I leave the group you will have to bring up the light ahead of me telling everyone where I\u2019m going.\u00a0 That\u2019s none of your business; that\u2019s my business.\u201d\u00a0 I got the job and toured all over the US, Europe and South America. My job for the next 3 \u00bd years included not only Lighting Design but stage management, technical director and sometimes company manager. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was January of my senior year at Sarah Lawrence College, 1965.\u00a0 I had been a Dance student for 3 years and then was taking Theatre my senior year. 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