Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance

The Grand Union, Q & A

The Grand Union, Q & A Respondents: Becky Arnold (BA); Trisha Brown (TB); Barbara Dilley (BD); Douglas Dunn (DD); David Gordon (DG); Nancy Lewis (NL); Steve Paxton (SP); Yvonne Rainer (YR)15 1. Why did you join Grand Union and what were your choreographic concerns at the time you joined? BA: When Yvonne disbanded her company in late 1969-1970 and suggested the members work collectively, I decided to try the experience — "Sure, why not," I said. "Should be interesting." My choreographic concerns were embryonic — I had done little composing. TB: In 1970, Yvonne Rainer asked me to join an improvisational dance company called the Grand Union. This new group would replace her former company and eliminate her role of leader/choreographer. Equalitywas in the air. A few others were invited; the final package included David Gordon, Stephen Paxton, Barbara Dilley, Nancy Lewis, Lincoln Scott, Becky Arnold and Douglas Dunn. Prior to this invitation, I had choreographed and produced Trillium, Fulling Solo with Singing, Lightfall, Target, Rulegame 5, Motor, Homemade, Inside, A String, Skunk Cabbage, Salt Grass, and VJaders, Medicine Dance, Planes, Snapshots, Falling Duet, Ballet, Dance with a Duck's Head, Yellow Belly, Skymap, Man Walking Down the Side of the Building, Clothes Pipe, The Floor of the Forest, and Other Miracles,Etc., Leaning Duets and The Stream. Those dances, some of them appearing during the Judson collaboration, had not been either witnessed or reviewed by a New York critic with the exception of perfunctory mention by Jill Johnston. I was, therefore, leery of submerging my unrecorded choreographic identity in a second collaborative venture that would perpetuate a lack of recognition for my own work. At the initial meeting of the Grand Union, I expressed my grave reservations about throwing in with them and Yvonne said, "What you want is a concert of your own at the Whitney Museum," to which I responded, "Yes," although self-elevation was not in the air. Walking on the Wall, Leaning Duets, Falling Duets and Skymap were performed at the Whitney Museum on March 30 and 31, 1971. See Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice, Anna Kisselgoff, New "York Times, Marcia Siegel, Boston Sunday Herald Traveler, and Sally R. Sommer, The Drama Review. Six months before this, I had joined the Grand Union. BD: I didn't join ... as such. The Grand Union evolved out of work by Yvonne Rainer. In particular, Continuous Project — Altered Daily. I worked with Yvonne from 1968 through this transmutation and it was, in a word, outrageous . There was a contagiousness to the explosion of spontaneity that started slowly, then grew and grew and grew till we just "did it" without even a word necessary. A very elemental question of concerns — what did I want to make, if I did? Where did one come from, anyway, to come on ... basic hesitation, selfdoubt and insecurity. DD: Politics. Stillness. DG: At the beginning there was no process. There were a number of people who had functioned as the Yvonne Rainer Company and had continued to make work independently. Not me. I had stopped in 1966. Yvonne didn't want to be boss anymore and I can't think why we were continuing to attempt to work together at all except that probably we were still working for Yvonne. What I mean is that now that we were no longer a group the only reason that we stayed a group was because Yvonne told us to and told us to find some new way of working and she would work with us. Anyway, I can't remember whose idea it was that we could do group choreography but we tried several ways. People brought in whole phrases or pieces 220 TERPSICHORE IN SNEAKERS of material and we all tried to learn them. Barbara Dilley was doing her circle dances then and we all worked on them for her and mostly made her angry because we took liberties with her material. After all weren't we free and equal? We tried a peculiar method of alternating a movement or short phrase donated by each member in a linear fashion and random order. That was a disaster . We were not fond of each other's choices. We dealt most badly with Yvonne's material input. Now that she was not boss, and none of us were, it was very difficult to stick to anything in rehearsal and more difficult to stick with her material. But...