Charles Atlas / Nam June Paik
Merce by Merce by Paik
1975, 00:28:54, NTSC, Farbe
This piece is a collaged video dance work featuring Merce Cunningham. He choreographed moves intended especially for this video work, exploring simple walking motions and very elaborate hand gestures and wrist movements. Cunningham is then placed on various landscapes, multiplied and collaged, performing different moves. This work allows Cunningham to explore new grounds of video-specific dance, and the ability to dance with previously taped images of himself. Paik layers other images with Cunningham's figure, like birds, airplanes, fish, waterfalls, etc. He creates a comparison between these elements and Cunningham's movement, often similar to a fish or an airplane. Paik poses the question: What is dance? He compares footage of dancers with real life movements, like a baby walking, and questions the boundaries of contemporary dance. He also sets a comparison between the great master Marcel Duchamp and Merce Cunningham. Both artists that questioned and challenged conventions and perceptions of art, and reinvented their respected artistic fields. (lg)
Schlagworte:
Tanz, Bewegung, Choreografie, Landschaft, Körper, Collage
» Charles Atlas / Nam June Paik