Today is composer, writer, philosopher and visual artist, John Cage's birthday--he would have been 95. I attended a birthday tribute held for him at St. Mark's Church Parish Hall in the Bowery.
For the 15th year, his friends, colleagues and fans got together to honor all things Cage. Produced in association with the Danspace Project, the evening celebrates a true renaissance man for the modern age. Cage continues to be muse and inspiration to many artists, both young and old. The house (which unfortunately was permeated by the smell of stale piss) was packed with old friends and young fans there to pay homage to a modern master. Yoko Ono sent a beautiful arrangement of yellow posies and a sweet birthday note.
From the program notes: "His most enduring, indeed notorious, composition, influenced by Robert Rauschenberg's all-black and all-white paintings, is the radically tacet 4' 33." Encouraging the ultimate freedom in musical expression, the three movements of 4' 33" are indicated by the pianist's closing and reopening of the piano key cover, during which no sounds are intentionally produced. It was first performed by the gifted pianist and Cage's long-time associate, David Tudor, in Woodstock, New York on August 29, 1952. Also that year at Black Mountain College, he presented a theatrical event considered by many to have been the first Happening." --Laura Kuhn
Enamored of this city for many reasons--just one of which is the fact that an intrepid Chinese man will get on his bicycle in a raging snowstorm and deliver hot pancakes with maple syrup to your door at 3:00 a.m. (this really does happen, my boyfriend and I used to place an order all the time because it delighted us so much and was such a soothing thing in the dead of winter and yes, we tipped damned well), this is one of those evenings that will get me out the door at the end of the day just to see who shows up and what happens in a room when so many creative, wacky people get together.
There were many beautiful readings of Cage's work, passages read from Finnegan's Wake, and readings and playlets on mushrooms, music, Marcel Duchamp, Merce Cunningham (Cage's romantic partner) and Marshall McCluhan. While someone recited a litany of the Cage oeuvre with his back to the audience, accompanied by Cage's music, another young man stuffed pounds of feathers into his mouth, visibly gagging on them before asphyxiating himself with a garbage bag over his head, while another man floated around the room in his underwear wearing angel wings, a beaded mask and waving a toy duck suspended on a string above audience members' heads. If you think I'm making this shit up, think again. Lovely violin duets were played with accompanying interpretive dancer. Original mesostics were read along with recited Cage favorites to celebrate a life and legacy that means so much to so many "fringe" New York musicians, writers and performance artists. Weird, touching, funny and moving, dancers, poets, actors and artists honored him in 4 minutes, 33 seconds each. Why this time limit? See above.
A personage like Cage is rare. And a celebratory evening dedicated to someone of his unique talents and vision could only happen in this rare and unique city. A place which I'm falling in love with more and more each day I spend here.
More Cage celebrations are on tap this month--on September 11, Nurit Tilles will perform excerpts from Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes" in a free concert at the Lincoln Center Library for Performing Arts (which has a Merce Cunningham exhibit), and upstate on September 28, Cage's "Lecture on the Weather" will be performed at Bard College.
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