The Meaning of It All

The Dada ultimately wanted to destroy art as it was and create an entirely new way of looking at things. Merce Cunningham, somewhat following the tradition, decided to take dance into its most basic form, motion in time. As far as meaning goes he said that “the meaning is there, if thats what you want.” Yes, please. The fact that the music, or noise, also has no obvious connection to the dance going on also does not help. To the left is an illustration from Xover, which I reviewed here. So, to me at least, Merce Cunningham is a deconstructionist because he did that just that, he deconstructed dance into its simplest elements, the moves through space and time.