As the Cunningham Collection continues to be catalogued, here are more close-ups of the aquisition items. This week’s images focus on Antic Meet (1958), a piece that the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will present as part of their Farewell Legacy Tour at the Walker’s McGuire Theater this November 4/5/6. Robert Rauschenberg costumed the piece with both his own designs and loot gathered from the New York second hand stores of the day. When Merce was creating a dance, he rarely discussed backstory and structure with Rauschenberg. But in a rare 1958 letter to Bob, he writes of Antic Meet, “I hope it’s dazzling rather than willy-nilly… it’s like a series of vaudeville scenes which overlap…This all comes from Dostoevsky.” (from Changes: Notes on Choreography, by Merce Cunningham, 1968)
If you could turn a costume inside out, crawl underneath a set piece, press your nose up against a Rauschenberg backdrop, this is what you might see…
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