Dance: Pop Ballet

They certainly belong together. Choreographer Merce Cunningham believes that all movement is dance. Composer John Cage insists that all sound is music. Pop Artist Robert Rauschenberg thinks “every object is as good as every other object.” But could they belong to derrière-garde London? After presenting 15 ballets in six performances at Sadler’s Wells, the triarchy established itself as the most explosive event in British ballet since Martha Graham’s London debut in 1954. At week’s end the company had proved such a surprise smash that it transferred to another theater for 18 more performances.

The repertory ranged from far-in to farthest out. In a 50-min. work aptly titled Aeon, a blinding flash of magnesium flares stirred Cunningham’s ten-member troupe into an otherworldly, slow-motion ballet. In the orchestra pit, Conductor Cage slowly raised and lowered his arms like a railroad signal, while his two-man orchestra conjured a percussive nightmare with such ear-splitting accents as a nail file rasped across a metal music stand. When the sound system shorted and buzzed harshly for several minutes, the audience accepted it as part of the show.

As was markedly evident in Suite for Five, no attempt was made to correlate Cage’s scores with Cunningham’s choreography; the dances were neither created nor rehearsed to the music. A couple of ballets ended as inconclusively as a New Yorker short story. What did it all mean—if anything? “Barefoot inconsequentiality,” as the Guardian snorted? Or “a much-needed shot in the backside,” as the Sunday Times averred? Most balletomanes tended to the Observer’s verdict that the three “are so full of invention that they will be a mine for imitators for years.”