OnStage: Exploring 'Ocean' depths

The monumental dance piece "Ocean" arose nearly 20 years ago out of a heady talk that included some heavy hitters of 20th-century art and letters. In 1990, composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham (life partners and artistic collaborators since 1944) were discussing mythologist Joseph Campbell's comment that, had Irish writer James Joyce followed "Finnegans Wake" with another novel, its subject would have been the sea.

Cage quickly named the piece and decided on its length -- 90 minutes. In true Cage fashion, he began composing a loose score made up not of standard notes and measures, but rather simple notations to be performed as musicians saw fit within specific periods of time. He also imagined what his dream staging might look like.

"It was Cage's idea that the dance be presented in the center of a circular space with the audience surrounding the dancers and the musicians further surrounding the audience so that the sound would wash over the space from all sides," Cunningham said via e-mail.

The choreographer, 89, has been busy rehearsing his company for next weekend's sold-out performance of "Ocean," at the bottom of Rainbow Quarry in Waite Park, 70 minutes northwest of the Twin Cities. "We don't know how the Rainbow Quarry will sound, but we are looking forward to finding out," he added.

Originally set to premiere in 1991, the project was shelved when Cage died in 1992. Since its 1994 premiere in Brussels, however, "Ocean" has been performed several times on proscenium and circular stages. But no prior staging will compare to this weekend's dramatic performance.

"Ocean" in Rainbow Quarry "is the biggest, most complex version we have ever done," Cunningham said.

The dancers will be located 100 feet below grade at the bottom of the quarry, surrounded by 1,200 audience members and 150 musicians, to form a performance structure of three concentric circles. "The framing of the space is totally realized in this quarry configuration of 'Ocean,'" said Trevor Carlson, executive director of the New York-based Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

During previous iterations in the round, he said, "we've performed in spaces that wouldn't allow a complete or evenly dispersed circle. It was sometimes more of an egg yolk and egg white kind of shape. The quarry, however, allows the performance to be perfectly concentric."

Choreography of chance

As with his work over the past decades, Cunningham created much of the movement for "Ocean" by using the computer program Dance Forms. Structural aspects of the choreography were decided via such "chance operations" as throwing dice or consulting the I-Ching.

But he also expanded his choreographic methodology to fully embrace Einstein's dictum, "There are no fixed points in space," which has long influenced the choreographer's kaleidoscopic dance groupings onstage. For "Ocean," Cunningham removed the fourth wall or stage front to create movement performed and visible from 360 degrees.

"Because 'Ocean' is in a circle, we're in constant space change," said dancer Andrea Weber. "It's really full and rewarding in that way."

The 150 musicians, many from the St. Cloud Symphony, will perform Cage's "time-bracketed notion," Carlson said. That means they can play the notes in each time period as slowly or as quickly as they like, as called for in a score completed by Andrew Culver.

Meanwhile, native Minnesotan John King, a Cunningham-company musician, will play an electronic score by David Tudor. Filmmaker Charles Atlas, a longtime Cage and Cunningham collaborator, will be manning a five-camera setup documenting the performance for posterity.

Carlson added that the work is a "repertory piece of significance, and each time it's realized, it's one of the most extraordinary experiences you can have, akin to a spiritual experience."

But staging the piece within the deep embrace of a rock quarry with the night sky overhead tops every other performance to date. "We all realize that the opportunity to give the 'Ocean' experience to another group of people, especially in this way, is really hot!"

Camille LeFevre writes frequently about dance.