{"id":3055,"date":"2011-07-11T09:56:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T16:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2011\/07\/rainforest\/"},"modified":"2011-07-13T09:59:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T16:59:29","slug":"rainforest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2011\/07\/11\/rainforest\/","title":{"rendered":"RainForest"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Jungle Gymnasts on a Farewell Tour<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

Rob Strong<\/p>\n

By\u00a0<\/span>ALASTAIR MACAULAY<\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

HANOVER, N.H. \u2014 The border between wildness and civilization, anarchy and order, was something that perpetually intrigued the choreographer\u00a0Merce Cunningham<\/a>. When the curtain rises on his 1968 \u201cRainForest,\u201d we\u2019re at once in a singularly Cunningham vision of feral behavior. Though the piece is famous for its d\u00e9cor of helium-filled silver pillows by Andy Warhol \u2014 six of which hang like a forest\u2019s foliage while the rest are loosely scattered around the stage like undergrowth \u2014 they wouldn\u2019t seem the least bit wild were it not for the behavior of the dancers.<\/p>\n

Feet and hands move like paws; bodies crawl along the floor; heads nuzzle or butt or, as if sensing alarm signals, turn sharply or slowly. In one image that often causes laughs in the audience, a man softly shoves a supine woman with his head and she rolls like a log. In an even more striking image, a woman swings upside down from a man\u2019s arm like a monkey on a branch.<\/p>\n

Zoology and social anthropology were often inseparable for Cunningham, who choreographed many works known as \u201cnature studies.\u201d \u201cRainForest,\u201d he said, was partly inspired by \u201cThe Forest People,\u201d the anthropologist Colin Turnbull\u2019s account of his time living among a tribe of African Pygmies. Cunningham, however, loving ambiguity, also reminded people that he himself grew up in Washington State, near the temperate rain forest of the Pacific Northwest. In an interview with the choreographer Trisha Brown, he said, \u201cThe forest was my first art lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ click to read full article at NYTimes.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times Jungle Gymnasts on a Farewell Tour Rob Strong By\u00a0ALASTAIR MACAULAY HANOVER, N.H. \u2014 The border between wildness and civilization, anarchy and order, was something that perpetually intrigued the choreographer\u00a0Merce Cunningham. When the curtain rises on his 1968 \u201cRainForest,\u201d we\u2019re at once in a singularly Cunningham vision of feral behavior. Though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}