Series: New Television
Program: New Television
Episode: 603
Date: 1989-01-01
Duration: 00:01:09

Subject: Modern dance
People: Caplan, Elliot; Cunningham, Merce
Copyright Holder: Cunningham Dance Foundation, Inc.

Clip Description
"Changing Steps" consists of solos, duets, trios, and quartets that can be performed in any order. The completed video work shows Cunningham's company of the 1980's staging the piece in the interior and exterior of a dance studio and in a more formal stage setting. The exterior of the studio blends into the natural environment, where a babbling stream passes by.

Program Description
This episode of "New Television" features Elliot Caplan and Merce Cunningham's "Changing Steps."

"Changing Steps" documents various incarnations of a dance piece of the same name by choreographer Merce Cunningham. The piece was originally created and performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1973 and consists of solos, duets, trios, and quartets that can be performed in any order. In 1974, Cunningham made a black-and-white video of the piece in his studio. The completed video work shows Cunningham's company of the 1980's staging the piece in the interior and exterior of a dance studio and in a more formal stage setting. The exterior of the studio blends into the natural environment, where a babbling stream passes by. Segments of the 1974 studio footage and footage showing the Company staging the work for performance is interspersed. The work concludes with the ensemble performing a lengthy partnering sequence of simultaneous duets. Narration at the beginning of the work, describing the circumstances of its creation, is by Robert Redford. The music is John Cage's work of 1960 "Cartridge Music." The recording that is used for the soundtrack was recorded in 1988 by Takehisha Kosugi, Michael Pugliese, and David Tudor. In addition to Cage's score, the sounds of the dancers' movements and of the environment are amplified. Directed by Elliot Caplan and Merce Cunningham.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Changing61.HTML