MerceDay 4: the young choreographer and “The Seasons”

MerceDay 3. Merce Cunningham, understandably, put a great deal of preparatory work into the work commissioned from him for Ballet Society by Lincoln Kirstein in 1947: his notes for the work that became “The Seasons” are extensive. This ambiguous but striking 1947 photograph by Larry Colwell (or rather a photograph of the photograph) is the only photo I know of this important bit short-lived work: the diagonal shows one couple left, a second couple centre, and then what seems to be a trio on the right. Cunningham himself danced in the work alongside professional ballet dancers; its two most important female dancers were Tanaquil Le Clercq (whom he partnered) and Gisela Caccialanza, both of whom had created important roles for George Balanchine.

Even at this stage, Cunningham revealed what may be called a “But” temperament, perhaps a “But also” temperament. When he asked Kirstein what kind of piece he wanted, Kirstein replied that he thought it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end - a reply reasonable enough. (Cunningham in later years proved himself capable of making plenty of works with beginnings, with middles, and with endings.) On this occasion, however, the contrary side of Cunningham surfaced. It occurred to him that nature doesn’t have beginnings, middles, or ends, and nor does James Joyce’s “Finnegans wake” (1939), a work in which he and John Cage had been immersing themselves since at least 1944. And so he conceived “The Seasons”, a work reflecting the cyclical nature of nature.

A true meeting of important modernist artists, “The Seasons” had a commissioned score by John Cage, and designs by Isamu Noguchi. It was deemed a success; after only three performances, it was taken into repertory by the new Balanchine-Kirstein company New York City Ballet, again with Cunningham as guest dancer. (Pat McBride, later Lady Lousada, replaced Caccialanza. Over fifty years later, she related her happy memories of Cunningham and Cage at the Barbican Centre, London.)

Nonetheless it was quickly dropped from City Ballet repertory. Kirstein, writing of it, seems to have changed tack about it more than once: decades later, he recalled it as a precursor of Jerome Robbins’s “Watermill”. I infer therefore that it was Balanchine who rejected it. To Balanchine alone did Kirstein systematically defer; Balanchine’s judgments alone had the force that made Kirstein revise his own usually strong and candid ones. It’s probable that nobody alive remembers “The Seasons”, but I think we may fairly guess that on this occasion Balanchine was wrong.

Friday 16 April.