Music choices. (Starting Here).

LIKE MOST PEOPLE WHO KNOW VERY LITTLE ABOUT A SUBJECT, I AM NONETHELESS WILLING TO TALK ABOUT IT. OH, I CAN COUNT A PHRASE, CAN DO A TIME STEP, AND AM ACQUAINTED WITH LOUIS HORST'S IDEAS on choreography. But I comprehend very little about how a choreographer gets the music he or she uses--or why. So I've been reading up.

Merce Cunningham's dancers don't dance to music, just to rhythms internal to their well-trained bodies and to strict timing (as I understand it, but read more on page 28). Cunningham and his partner, composer John Cage, have been among the most prominent proponents that the two arts exist separate and complete in themselves, but like good marriage partners, they may lie side by side. Further, always at the advancing edge of contemporary modern dance and music, the two insisted that if anything was an appropriate subject and method for dancing, then anything was an appropriate musical vehicle and sound for dancing to (or rather, with). Sometimes it was new music, sometimes scratchy short-wave radio simulations, sometimes nature sounds and an endless assortment of bells, whistles, and electronic contortions. In The Dancer and the Dance (1985, 1991), Cunningham told his interviewer, "My work with John has convinced me that it was possible, even necessary, for the dance to stand on its own legs rather than on the music, and also that the two arts could exist together using the same amount of time, each in its own way, one for the eye and the kinesthetic sense, the other for the ear."

In the mid-twentieth century, modern dancers such as Trisha Brown also explored the relationships between dance and music; some performed in silence before returning to other sounds and scores. In Sally Banes's definitive article from Choreography and Dance (April 1974), "Dancing (with/to/ before/on/in/over/after/against/away from/ without) the Music: Vicissitudes of Collaboration in American Postmodern Choreography," Brown is said to have frankly stated "that she was fired of seeing the larger audiences for which she was booked by the '80s walk out during her performances and wondered ... whether the absence of music created too much discomfort for them even to see the dancing." Brown has since used every kind of music in her work as part of the greater collage.

Lucia Dlugoszewski, composer for and partner of modern dance-maker Erick Hawkins, is quoted in Ear Training for the Body (1994) by Katherine Teck, as observing in the late 1950s that the dancer and composer of music for dance were confronted with two trends: enormous amounts of recorded material and, "at an ever-increasing speed, we have a constant barrage of every conceivable culture.... The dialogue of existence for the artist is always between the extent of his material and what he will choose from it, and with our range of material widened to a veritable infinity, we have certainly a problem in reorganizing our attitude toward choice...."

While there are many kinds of choices that must be made in regard to music--among them simpatico artists with whom to work, the performing rights that are available (see "Knowing the Score" on page 34), what Doris Humphrey calls "taste" in The Art of Making Dances (1959, 1987) and Rhee Gold labels as "appropriateness" (see "Protecting the Child Dancer" on page 41)--many of today's choices in music are based on time and money. Those two factors usually hinge on what is or isn't already in existence.

With the support of the whole National Ballet of Canada and an extended and talented fund-raising network, choreographer and Artistic Director James Kudelka chose something altogether new to close NBC's fiftieth-anniversary season. American Michael Torke composed all new music and Robert Sirman created the libretto for Kudelka's full-orchestra, evening-length ballet The Contract. But when I attended Houston Ballet's premiere of its evening-length Peter Pan, acclaimed conductor and musical arranger Niel DePonte explained to me how he and choreographer Trey McIntyre had worked together to assemble music that evoked the mood and movement of the well-known story. They chose portions of Sir Edward Elgar's work (see Clive Barnes's review on page 46), arranged it for Houston's orchestra, and fitted it to the libretto. It worked well. In a slightly different vein, Helgi Tomasson, an experienced choreographer and the artistic director of San Francisco Ballet, explained to reporter Allan Ulrich of the San Francisco Chronicle that he was inspired by Shanghai-born composer Bright Sheng's compact-disc recordings during one of Tomasson's many electronic listening sessions. Sheng, who subsequently "fell in love with the company and its orchestra," collaborated with the choreographer on creating the short piece Chi-Lin, and came and conducted for its premiere.

The above examples use full orchestras, chamber groups, or occasionally solo musicians for their performances. But the endless amounts of listening in-search-of, evaluating whether the wealth of all kinds is there, are not essentially different from a dance-program head arranging a year-end concert or recital; the choices must hinge on time, resources, taste, and, of course, the audience. Yes, presenters must discover the diamonds among the dross.

But there's something more. In Humphrey's now-accepted textbook for choreographers, The Art of Making Dances, the author spends an early chapter defining what qualities are required of a true dance-maker. "Finally," she says, "our choreographer had better have something to say.

... He must ask himself, `What do I believe in, what do I want to say?' He must have a high resistance to novelty for its own sake and courage to depart from the trends of the day if necessary. To compose for himself, he must put a stethoscope to his own heart and listen to those mysterious inner voices which are the guide to originality."

Editor in Chief K. C. Patrick has worked for Dance Magazine, both in New York and California, since 1998. She was editor of Dance Teacher Now, a position she held for ten years.