For my senior thesis in art history, I’m writing about the longevity of works by contemporary artists dealing with situational art forms—that is, artworks that are defined by the context in which they are presented and in the very ephemeral nature of their existence. The longevity of dance works poses many of the same questions as these conceptual and performance artworks: should these works exist merely in ephemera, through the photographs and videos and paper documents accompanying them? (In the case of artist Tino Sehgal, ephemera are impossible, as he does not allow photographs, video, or written contracts about his work. Everything is conveyed orally, and the knowledge of these works dies with the people responsible for them.) Working with the various generations of dancers in the former Cunningham Company, I’ve found that much of the knowledge is anecdotal and person-based, sometimes even coming solely from muscle memory to fully explain a step. It is often conveyed through conversation and metaphor, with dancers recalling, “Merce used to say this,” or, “We called this section the benders.” If only every dancer could write down every single memory they have of the work and of the choreographer, then we might have a fuller history of the work. Alas, this is impractical and impossible, and so the ultimate reality is that as these dancers pass (apologies for the grim reminder of our mortality, but this does unfortunately effect longevity) we will lose both their movement knowledge and their anecdotal knowledge. So, in the absence of people, will we resort to paper documents and photographs? Will video be our saving grace? Again, the questions are virtually infinite, and the way we deal with them will only be known with time.

Another question: can and should we reconstruct these works? These pieces are the products of their time, often being performed and understood under a distinct set of circumstances that are impossible to replicate. Should we even try? I recently saw a work by relational artist Rirkrit Tiravanija that had been acquired by MoMA. The piece was first shown in 1992 at a gallery in Soho, where the artist stripped bare the gallery walls, flipped it inside out, and cooked curry during the day, inviting the public to come and enjoy what was deemed an cross-cultural/artworld experience. A veritable caricature of the piece was presented at MoMA, and though I didn’t see the original work (being an infant at the time), I can tell that the sentimentalized docent tour and odd setup in a white-walled museum does not do justice to the original work and even trivializes it in the process. With Merce’s work, this specificity of time/place is less important, but the distinct set of chance-based events put into play by his works were most definitely determined by their surroundings and distinct set of circumstances. (Ahem, Chance and Circumstance.) Then again, perhaps because Cunningham’s framework distinctly set out to play with these circumstances, his works are better suited to new circumstances today. Perhaps our reconstruction of Roaratorio or, more aptly, our Minevent, is exactly the kind of situation-based model that Cunningham set out to explore. Each time we dancers solve the problems put forth by the choreography, we change the finished product in some way. So the fact that dancers have continued to solve these problems from the mid-twentieth century to the twenty-first means that this may be a never-ending pursuit, and one that should very well be continued.

The questions surrounding these issues could go on and on. I might discuss the continued codification of the Cunningham technique, the archived intellectual history of his work, the possibility of a posthumous evolution of choreography. But the main questions, the “how” and “why” of it all, are pretty simple. How? Well, you can figure that out at our performance tomorrow, when we show you the process of learning and understanding Merce’s work. Why? Once again, I’m nearly positive that by simply being at the performance tomorrow and seeing this postmodern work inhabited by twenty-first century students, seeing it enlivened, re-understood, and re-imagined—you’ll just know. This work—Merce’s work—is worth it.