MERCE CUNNINGHAM'S IPOD TRICKS FALL FLAT; HIP-HOP BODIES FLY

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on October 11, 2006.

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Merce Cunningham wants you to bring your iPod to his new ``eyeSpace.'' If you happen to be one of the choreographer's admirers who sees no need to own one, you may borrow the gear for free at the Joyce Theater door.

With it, you can access ``International Cloud Atlas,'' Mikel Rouse's score for the dance and shuffle its components as you please. The noise-scape is completed by two musicians at computers, filling the theater with a gentle wash of ambient sound.

As most dance aficionados know, the 87-year-old Cunningham's iconoclastic choreography relates only obliquely to the scores he mates with it.

The two are not interdependent; they are merely the same length. Often the dance and the music created for it meet for the first time just before the premiere.

For much of Cunningham's long, illustrious and controversial career, the enigmatic scores were provided by avant-garde masters like John Cage, the choreographer's partner, who died in 1992.

Come the new millennium, Cunningham began to update his accompaniment. For his 50th-anniversary concert in 2003, he commissioned a pair of rock bands, Radiohead and Sigur Ros, for his new ``Split Sides.''

The choice of musicians, as well as the choreography itself, seemed to be a capitulation to popular taste.

Interactive Dance

Now, with ``eyeSpace'' (through Oct. 15), Cunningham is inviting his audience to be interactive, a tactic that presumably engages the art-resistant. This from an artist who stuck to his esoteric aesthetic for decades, often with glorious results.

The choreography for ``eyeSpace'' is even more discouraging than the sound gimmickry.

A colorful, ebullient painting by Henry Samelson, ``Blues Arrive Not Anticipating What Transpires Even Between Themselves,'' serves as a backdrop to a dozen dancers in blue unitards unfortunately color-keyed to the decor.

The dancers are deployed in the most obvious ways imaginable. A slow, weighty quartet is followed by a trio of petite women doing finicky, quicksilver things. A second trio, all male, joins them, then there's a duet, and that's it.

At no point does Cunningham draw on his great invention: the field of many figures, each equipped with specific actions and purposes, coming together as if at random in time and space. This setup, allowing the viewer to choose what to focus on, is interactivity at its most subtle and intelligent.

``EyeSpace'' shares the program with a ``Minevent'' -- segments of Cunningham's 1997 ``Scenario'' remixed for the occasion -- and the 1960 ``Crises.''

``Crises'' is sheer invention and delight, packed with singular illustrations of Cunningham's theories about the endless adventures of the body in space. And it's jazzy and witty, to boot.

Urban Wings

A breakdancer rightly called Cyclone spins on his head with a gyroscope's unflappable aplomb. A percussionist known as Peter Rabbit works his plastic buckets so swiftly that his sticks register as a blur.

This is ``Rennie Harris's New York Legends of Hip-Hop,'' a celebration of the phenomenon born in the 1970s on the mean streets of the Bronx.

Harris's own company, the Philadelphia-based Rennie Harris Puremovement, is a favorite on the concert circuit and devoted to preserving hip-hop culture through dance. ``New York Legends,'' a separate undertaking, lovingly demonstrates the connection between the genre's past and present.

Hip-Hop Veterans

The show -- loud, fast and sassy -- features originators slowed just a little by the passage of time. Pop Master Fabel (Jorge Pabon), a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew, can deliver the essence of what he once did with undiminished charisma.

Representing the rising generation, Tic and Tac (twins Tyheem and Kareem Barnes) seem to have no allegiance to gravity or the dictates of anatomy. One whirls in place, spinning his sibling on his head, then stops short while his human headgear uncannily continues to rotate.

The program gives equal time to the music associated with the dancing. DJs make mischief on their turntables, and ``Beatboxers'' mike sounds they produce with their bodies without resorting to words.

Documentary video footage reflects hip-hop's social and political roots. It shows how the form channeled the exorbitant energy of urban youth and its anger and self- assertion as well. And how women struggled for equal opportunity in the field.

This extravaganza is attractive to audiences young, old and in between -- which is exactly what the New Victory's lively shows aim for. Anyone who's ferried a youngster to dumbed-down, cuted-up kiddie entertainment will be undyingly grateful.

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company is at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th Street, through Oct. 15. Information: (1)(212) 242-0800; http://www.joyce.org.

``Rennie Harris's New York Legends of Hip-Hop'' is at the New Victory Theater, 209 W. 42nd St., through Oct. 22. Information: (1)(212) 239-6200; http://www.newvictory.org.

© 2006 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.