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Grand Union: The Presentation of Everyday Life as Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Sally Banes
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Extract

The Grand Union was a collective of choreographer/performers which during the years 1970–76 made group improvisations embracing dance, theater, and theatrics in an ongoing investigation into the nature of dance and performance. Grand Union's identity as a group had several sources: some of the nine who have been its members had known each other for as long as ten years when the group formed; they had seen and performed in each other's works since the Judson Church days. Most had studied with Merce Cunningham, and three had danced in his company.

One important and rich source for the group's genesis was Yvonne Rainer's work Continuous Project-Altered Daily (CP-AD). To understand the course of Grand Union's activities, it is useful to look first at the changing nature of CP-AD. Rainer began the piece in 1969, and in March 1970 presented a definitive version at the Whitney Museum. The performers were Becky Arnold, Douglas Dunn, David Gordon, Barbara Lloyd (now Dilley), Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer and various readers.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Spring/Summer 1978 , pp. 43 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1978

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References

Notes

1. Rainer, Yvonne, Work 1961–73 (New York: New York University Press, 1974), pp. 125–154.Google Scholar

2. Ibid.

3. Lecture to performance class, School of Visual Arts, New York City, December 3, 1973.

4. Rainer, , Work, pp. 125–154.Google Scholar

5. Paxton, Steve, “The Grand Union,” The Drama Review, vol. 16 no. 3 (T-55, September 1972): 128–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Conversations with the author, February 1974-present.

7. Paxton, “The Grand Union,” p. [129].

8. In 1970, WAR; in 1971, after her return from six weeks in India, Grand Union Dreams and Numerous Frames; in 1972, In the College, Performance and her first long film, Lives of Performers.

9. Editors' Forum. Dance Magazine (October 1972): 100.Google Scholar

10. See, for instance, “The Grand Union, Critics and Friends,” Soho Weekly News 4/29/76; Paxton, “The Grand Union”; various program notes.

11. Steinberg, Leo, “Other Criteria,” Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 90.Google Scholar

12. See, for instance, Baker, Robb, “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Dance Magazine (August 1976): 20–22, 24–25Google Scholar; Kendall, Elizabeth, “Grand Union: Our Gang,” Ballet Review vol. 5, no. 4 (1975–1976): 44–55.Google Scholar

13. Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1959).Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 128.

15. Goffman, Erving, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).Google Scholar

16. Ibid., pp. 123–155.

17. Bartell, Scott, “Eccyclema,” Minnesota Daily, 6/3/71.Google Scholar