BAM 1968: Merce Cunningham’s First Major New York Season

This summer, in the Natman Room off of BAM's main lobby, a moment in BAM's history is celebrated—the first major New York run of Merce Cunningham Dance Company in May 1968. Stop by and check out the photos and artifacts that document the first run of many to follow by this renowned company.

In May 1968, as the Vietnam War raged on and the civil rights movement gained momentum, the cultural scene was undergoing a revolution of its own in Brooklyn. That month, choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company performed 12 dances in eight performances at BAM in his troupe’s first major New York season. It was part of the first full season of programming curated by Harvey Lichtenstein, the impresario who would go on to lead BAM for 32 years. That inaugural season emphasized dance and included runs by the companies of Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and José Limón, as well as poetry and symphonic and jazz music programs. (The following year, BAM presented the Festival of Dance, comprising Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, Erick Hawkins, Twyla Tharp, Meredith Monk, and Yvonne Rainer, as well as the above.)

BAM Illustrated: Black Mountain College Yearbook

Black Mountain College was founded in North Carolina in 1933 as a new kind of college with art as its central focus. Students and teachers shared roles and work, boundaries between disciplines dissolved, and art bled into life, nurturing an atmosphere of unfettered creative collaboration. Only open for 24 years, the school was home to an impressive list of former students and teachers, many of whom were, and continue to be, hugely influential in the arts and beyond.

From November 20—23, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, and others celebrate the college with Black Mountain Songs. Below illustrator Nathan Gelgud revisits some of Black Mountain's famous alumni in our own Black Mountain College Yearbook. (Scroll down for additional information on each person.)

Unseen Warhol

by Sarah Gentile

One of the joys as an archivist at an arts organization with a 150-plus-year history is seeing what has remained unseen for a long time. While working on the Leon Levy Digital Archives grant, we are processing photographs, video, audio, programs and ephemera that in some cases has been hidden for decades. Andy Warhol himself had a fascination with archives, going so far as to create his own version called Time Capsule 21, an art project consisting of more than 600 cardboard boxes full of ephemera from his daily life.

This fall, BAM will present Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films, a set of films never publicly shown, with accompanying music from rock icons Dean Wareham, Tom Verlaine, and Martin Rev, among others. It's not the first time Warhol's ties to rock were seen at BAM. In 1968, The Velvet Underground, the in-house band at Warhol's Factory, came to BAM for Merce Cunningham's opening night benefit. Warhol's helium-filled, mirrored, floating rectangles—what he called Silver Clouds—were also part of the New York premiere of Cunningham's RainForest, one of a set of eight performances featuring the work of composer John Cage and visual artists Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Then in 1989, Lou Reed and John Cale paid tribute to Warhol in the BAM-commissioned Songs for Drella, for which Warhol-inspired Campbell's soup cans and packets were created to give to the opening night audience. With the launch of the BAM archives website in 2016, expect to see more of these finds from BAM's history soon.

Excerpt from a 1968 Merce Cunningham BAM promotional mailing highlighting A Rock 
Dance; the Velvet Underground performed.

welcometobobrauschenbergamerica

bobrauschenbergamerica

Stuffed chickens, backyard bathtubs, roller skates, pilled blankets: these are just a few of the homespun discards featured in Robert Rauschenberg’s work. As a young artist in New York in the 1950s, Rauschenberg would roam the streets around his studio, picking up everything from yesterday’s funny papers to worn out car tires and use them in his assemblages. In line with many of his Black Mountain contemporaries, Rauschenberg sought to close the gap between art and life by incorporating into his artwork the textures of American detritus.

Harvey Oral History: How I fell in love with modern dance

Harvey swag from the BAM Hamm Archives

Listen to Harvey talk about falling in love with modern dance—how he became a dancer himself, and how he was involved at the New Dance Group and Black Mountain College, where he first saw a Merce Cunningham/John Cage happening.


Harvey-InterestInDance by BAMorg

Check out this student project on Black Mountain College that features an early "happening" video (at 3:51) with Cunningham, Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg, all of whom Harvey studied with at Black Mountain.