What a thrill to support the creation and premiere of this new collaboration between Bebe Miller and longtime dancers Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones. Tether is an improvised dance, sparked by curiosity about Merce Cunningham and John Cage’s manner of exchange with each other and their collaborators, and the evidence of the tethers they have left behind. Miller, Hauser and Jones share a 20-plus-year creative scrutiny via dance-making together—Tether welcomes Cunningham as a fourth partner. The work asks: might Cunningham’s Loops (1971) as a text amplify some aspect of the artists’ own shared practice? Could Cunningham’s notion of coexisting and predetermined materials serve as a trigger, a tether, for their own artistic interests? Pianist Adam Tendler’s rendition of Cage’s music score acts as a parallel connection to the Cage/Cunningham conversation.
Presented as part of “Unavailable Memory: In Conversation with Cunningham & Cage,” an evening of dance and music co-Produced by The Merce Cunningham Trust.
Doolittle+Bird 