Angel of Merce

When did you start keeping a journal?

I have to explain. My journals are really like letters. I was very close to my mother. She briefly performed in Boston with the Braggiotti Denishawn company and Miriam Winslow, but basically she chose to have a family and a studio. She was living, in a way, vicariously: She was not a ballet mom, but she did want to hear about everything. I wrote voluminous letters, which were like journals. I also did that with Earle when he was working in Europe, and they both kept everything. So I had those and then I also—in my most pathetically complaining end-of-the-book years—kept a private journal. [Laughs] I was being such a wimp. Those were not sent to anybody.

One of your great passions in dance was Margot Fonteyn. Why did she strike such a chord?

She was the most important female dancer in my life. She gave me a new idea about what dancing could be. I adored her!

How did she give you a new idea about what dancing could be?

People find this hard to believe. I really and truly never intended or wanted to be a dancer. I did not enjoy teaching; when I was a very young teenager, I used to assist my mom in her classes, and when I was an older teen I used to teach in her studio as well. I never wanted that life, but there was something about Fonteyn that went beyond being a performer or a dancer—there was just something about her spirit, her modesty, what she could give people that was so moving. I feel sorry for you for being too young.

Your descriptions of Rauschenberg, Cage and Cunningham are so rich. I don’t think I’ve ever known them so well. You also don’t seem to leave anything out.

Yep. I have certain regrets about that.

I was wondering.

I’m pretty open about difficulties with Merce, and I would never ever want to hurt him or upset him, but if you tell the story you can’t just make it all sweetness and light. You have to be honest to a degree. This is not a secret. Just recently, there was an article in The New York Times about what’s going to happen to Merce’s work [after he dies], and [designated executor] Laura Kuhn, speaking for Merce, said you sort of have to design what he has in mind because he won’t tell you. This is part of his nature, and this is what we all needed to understand. Of course, when you’re a young person you can get emotionally involved and overreact to things; one’s own ego gets in the way. You get wounded. But now Merce is a totally different person. His relationship to his dancers has changed: the age difference, of course, is huge. He is the grand master and he doesn’t have to deal with some of the things that he should have been dealing with when he had no administration. He’s a very much mellowed, congenial guy.

There are still problems, I’m sure. Of course, there’s jealousy.

Oh, God yes. And I have to say that I was probably the most fortunate one. During the 20 years I was there, I got beautiful things made for me, and I was basically Merce’s partner in almost all of those things. I think every one of the women would wish for that. That’s perfectly natural. I know I was resented. It’s a tough situation. It’s not that I wanted to give up being his partner! But Viola Farber was an extraordinary dancer, and Merce did work with her and she got to share billing with me in the end. I still don’t think she got what she might have wished for.

Do you think that Merce set up a kind of competitiveness between the two of you?

I don’t know. That is classic [Martha] Graham stuff, and it’s not impossible to think that that wasn’t true. I do think he loved her extremely, as did Bob and Jasper [Johns], and that was my insecurity, because the three of them adored her, and she was such a unique dancer. As I say in the book, I was sort of the conventional ballet-type dancer, and Viola was a really interesting dancer.

Who took after Martha Graham more: Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham?

I really don’t know what it was like being in Paul’s company. Merce was never ever mean. He never shouted at anyone. He was never rude to us. If anything, you were scared because he was withdrawn. There may have been suppressed anger—or we would read it as suppressed anger, but he didn’t express these things.

But Merce did have what you refer to as that “black angry mood?”

Yes. But he didn’t unleash it. You never knew which one of us he was mad at and often it had nothing to do with any of us. It was other problems. He had so much to deal with, always. John told me he was better than he had been in the early years when the two of them were touring together. Sometimes Merce would lock himself away and not communicate with anyone. But just think about it: If you are a dancer who has to dance and you get to perform once or twice a year—when you are already a great dancer—this is enough to make anyone miserable.

There’s something about righting wrongs in this book, which I love. For one, you criticize John Martin, the former chief dance critic of the New York Times, for virtually ignoring the company.

I reread my own book, and I think, God, Carolyn, that’s pretty gutsy. I’m amazed at myself, frankly. I was pretty gutsy about lots of things in the book. When Knopf asked, “Are you going to be available to do interviews?” I said, “No, I’m going to New Zealand—I’m taking the nearest boat and getting out of town.” And they believed me! And frankly, that’s why they liked it.

Why did you make the decision to be so candid?

I didn’t make the decision; I just wrote. When I finished I really felt I’d written the book for myself. I didn’t even think about who was going to read it. It just seemed dishonest not to write what happened.

What do you want young dancers to take away from this book?

Courage. Fortitude. I’m going to sound like a pissant here, but I’m tired of seeing brilliant technique. I just look for something more. You never saw just technique with Merce dancing. There was this amazing person with amazing energy and something that went beyond steps. I never saw Merce do any steps. He was dancing. And what I see so often—even though I don’t go to dance so much anymore—is a lot of incredible technique and it touches me not at all. I’m not moved. I don’t care.

Do you work with members of the Cunningham company?

I do. I go back and work with them on the pieces I was in. Recently, it’s been very rewarding. There have been times in past years when I felt the dancers didn’t want to know what it was like before. That was too bad. But recently they’ve been very responsive and it’s been fun.

Do you know why that shift occurred?

I don’t know. There was a time when, and I’m not naming any names, but I would give a correction to a particular dancer and that dancer would turn his or her back to me and walk away. And then you think, Well why am I doing this? But that is quite a long time ago. Thank God.

The way you write about avant-garde music—the loudness especially—just made me laugh out loud.

[Laughs] I’m going to get in real trouble. For instance, there was one bold section where I was pretty nasty, when I talked about the guys in the pit.

You mean where you wrote, “Let’s place most of the blame where it belongs: on the Live-Electronics Jockeys who call themselves musicians”?

Yes. Actually, [editor Robert] Gottlieb said, “Are you sure you want to leave it in there?” You have to understand, all the people in the company while I was there, I loved them all. I was very fond of Gordon Mumma and the composers who worked with the company, so it was not in any way personal. Some of the pieces they made were absolutely fabulous, but I do think that one should not assault the eardrums of people. Now rock-and-roll people’s ears have been blown away anyway; half the younger generation is probably going to be deaf. I’d rather not be deaf. I like hearing little birds!

One of the things that I love about Chance and Circumstance is that it’s as if the dancer is in control—for once.

Oh you got that? [Laughs] Yes! Dancers are too often treated like children—especially in big companies, but in small ones, too. And the thing is that most of us in modern dance—I don’t know about it today—but most of us are college graduates. Most of us aren’t children, and I remember that both [former Cunningham dancers] Albert Reid and Bill Davis terribly resented being talked to like we were children. I was a child for a long, long time—even though I was in my twenties. There was a point at which I just wanted to be a grown-up.

Could you talk about why you left the company?

Haven’t I? [Laughs] I felt very strongly that I was not growing as a dancer or as a human being. I wanted to be in the country. My first little crocus is blooming as we speak; things like this are what I was missing out on. If you’re not growing as a dancer, which is what I felt, and not growing as a person, then it’s time to change.

Is there one dance you miss performing the most?

I don’t miss performing one tiny bit. I miss class. I miss rehearsing. I do not miss performing. No! That’s one of the reasons why I think I think I could stop like that.

Were you always a process person more than a performance person? At least in your mind?

I guess I never thought about it, but yes. Deborah Jowitt is a good friend, and she still performs. I’ve been asked to do these kinds of performances with older dancers and honestly, I have no desire to do them. None whatsoever. I performed from the time I was three. A lot of people have, and I’m not unique in that, but I’ve had it. It seems that you fought being a dancer even though it was natural. You had to find an intellectual reason to get on the stage?

Yes. I had to have something beyond just putting on a costume and going out onstage. I had to believe it was more important. That sounds rather awful. It had to have a bigger dimension for me, and that’s what I really think John was able to provide.

Are you thinking about writing another book?

One of the things I’ve been toying with, because so much of the music part of the book was cut, is a kind of remembrance of Earle Brown. He also wrote some really fascinating letters. There are two people writing books about him, but they’re more about his music than about his life. So I’m thinking I might do something very small; it might just end up in his archives. I’ll tell you a good story about how we met: Earle Brown went to the same summer camp as my brother. I went to visit my brother with my mother and father. I was nine, skinny, hair in pigtails. This little freckle-faced boy a year older saw this little girl step off the boat and said, “I’m going to marry her when I grow up.”

Really?

That is true! That’s the true story. And he did.

Chance and Circumstance (Knopf, $37.50) is out now.