Ms. Teitelbaum has extensive experience teaching Merce Cunningham technique and repertory to dancers of all levels of expertise, from professional company members to fourth grade students. As a respected stager of the work of Mr. Cunningham, she teaches selected dances from the repertory, as licensed by the Cunningham Trust. She also shares the Cunningham repertory more informally, by selecting material from various dances and connecting these elements to form what is called a minEvent, referring to the Event format Cunningham developed in the early years of his company to accommodate non-traditional performing spaces.
Here's a write-up of a Stanford University residency, written by a participant:
To a body raised on ballet, trained for a few brief years in Graham technique, and versed to varying degrees in forms of modern, theater, jazz, and character dance, Cunningham proved an entirely new experience. Each day began with an hour and a half of technique class, inclusive of muscles not necessarily addressed in other disciplines, instigating, to be certain, an ache or two.
The notion of activating rotation even as one stands in parallel and acknowledging that certain muscles must be called upon in order to appear still while others move in opposition shed light on the physical principles of Merce’s technique. Such small realizations also indicated the wealth of information yet to be absorbed, both intellectually and physically.
Following technique class, the dancers plunged into snippets of repertory to be compiled into Event format, a method Cunningham himself used often to adapt portions of existing choreography and create performances fit for any amount of time or space. Ours, a miniature version, would be called a MinEvent.
To dance Merce, one needs to exercise—no less than the arms, legs, or torso—the brain. As Teitelbaum introduced what she called “the games” from Canfield (1969), I felt my mind filling with rules of play and intricacies of logic. In the skips section, for example: dancers must start the choreographed three-part phrase with a certain foot depending on which side of the stage they stand on; dancers must always begin from a corner on the first measure of a phrase, that is, unless they are joining another dancer arriving in their corner mid-phrase; and dancers may never travel across the front lip of the stage or begin by traveling downstage toward the audience.
Setting aside the skips game, we played three others. On each occasion, Teitelbaum taught material and then drew the map key that unlocked its use, a framework and guidelines that produced a unique outcome with every iteration. Needless to say, I left that first rehearsal with my mind still swimming, but giddy at the superbly organized chaos the games enabled.
Four technique classes and 10 hours of rehearsal later, 17 dancers had learned portions of Canfield, Un jour ou deux (1973), Roaratorio (1983), Doubletoss (1993), and Loosestrife (1991). We’d scanned four decades of work in four days, just barely skimming the surface of an opus of work spanning more than 60 years.
The next day, we assembled for the MinEvent, an informal open rehearsal open to the public. The evening included one run of the work as learned in silence, and one with a surprise soundtrack (one that most dancers had never heard before), as well as a post-show commentary by Teitelbaum and Macaulay. Dancers joined the audience for a guided tour through the “Merceness” of what we had just performed.
Macaulay and Teitelbaum pointed to the rhythms turned accompaniment created by the feet, and the addition of other sounds in the second run, demonstrating Cunningham’s idea that dance, music, and design are to coexist, oftentimes created separately and only united on the day of performance. They reflected on the vast diversity of movement types from quick runs and hops in the “jigs” from Roaratorio to the adagio qualities in Un jour ou deux and the mix of sharp and slow movement of Loosestrife. They touched on the slight variations in timing as a large group of dancers executed the same movement facing different directions, and explained Cunningham’s emphasis on the solo even when moving among others.
Teitelbaum and Macaulay visited aspects of “Merceness” that led audience members and dancers alike to debrief on an experience, be it a 40-minute viewing or a four-day workshop. Together, they provided food for thought to prepare us for MCDC’s only remaining appearance in the Bay Area and the final performance of Nearly 90(2), the last piece Cunningham created before his death.
— Stav Ziv, Arts in Student Life Coordinator at the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa)
Ms. Teitelbaum was the faculty chair at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York for 14 years and continues to teach and stage works for the Merce Cunningham Trust. Well regarded for bringing singular clarity to the study of this technique, she is available to teach technique class, alone or in combination with repertory and/or the Feldenkrais Method®.
To create a dance residency for your school or organization, please contact her at [email protected].
Here's a write-up of a Stanford University residency, written by a participant:
To a body raised on ballet, trained for a few brief years in Graham technique, and versed to varying degrees in forms of modern, theater, jazz, and character dance, Cunningham proved an entirely new experience. Each day began with an hour and a half of technique class, inclusive of muscles not necessarily addressed in other disciplines, instigating, to be certain, an ache or two.
The notion of activating rotation even as one stands in parallel and acknowledging that certain muscles must be called upon in order to appear still while others move in opposition shed light on the physical principles of Merce’s technique. Such small realizations also indicated the wealth of information yet to be absorbed, both intellectually and physically.
Following technique class, the dancers plunged into snippets of repertory to be compiled into Event format, a method Cunningham himself used often to adapt portions of existing choreography and create performances fit for any amount of time or space. Ours, a miniature version, would be called a MinEvent.
To dance Merce, one needs to exercise—no less than the arms, legs, or torso—the brain. As Teitelbaum introduced what she called “the games” from Canfield (1969), I felt my mind filling with rules of play and intricacies of logic. In the skips section, for example: dancers must start the choreographed three-part phrase with a certain foot depending on which side of the stage they stand on; dancers must always begin from a corner on the first measure of a phrase, that is, unless they are joining another dancer arriving in their corner mid-phrase; and dancers may never travel across the front lip of the stage or begin by traveling downstage toward the audience.
Setting aside the skips game, we played three others. On each occasion, Teitelbaum taught material and then drew the map key that unlocked its use, a framework and guidelines that produced a unique outcome with every iteration. Needless to say, I left that first rehearsal with my mind still swimming, but giddy at the superbly organized chaos the games enabled.
Four technique classes and 10 hours of rehearsal later, 17 dancers had learned portions of Canfield, Un jour ou deux (1973), Roaratorio (1983), Doubletoss (1993), and Loosestrife (1991). We’d scanned four decades of work in four days, just barely skimming the surface of an opus of work spanning more than 60 years.
The next day, we assembled for the MinEvent, an informal open rehearsal open to the public. The evening included one run of the work as learned in silence, and one with a surprise soundtrack (one that most dancers had never heard before), as well as a post-show commentary by Teitelbaum and Macaulay. Dancers joined the audience for a guided tour through the “Merceness” of what we had just performed.
Macaulay and Teitelbaum pointed to the rhythms turned accompaniment created by the feet, and the addition of other sounds in the second run, demonstrating Cunningham’s idea that dance, music, and design are to coexist, oftentimes created separately and only united on the day of performance. They reflected on the vast diversity of movement types from quick runs and hops in the “jigs” from Roaratorio to the adagio qualities in Un jour ou deux and the mix of sharp and slow movement of Loosestrife. They touched on the slight variations in timing as a large group of dancers executed the same movement facing different directions, and explained Cunningham’s emphasis on the solo even when moving among others.
Teitelbaum and Macaulay visited aspects of “Merceness” that led audience members and dancers alike to debrief on an experience, be it a 40-minute viewing or a four-day workshop. Together, they provided food for thought to prepare us for MCDC’s only remaining appearance in the Bay Area and the final performance of Nearly 90(2), the last piece Cunningham created before his death.
— Stav Ziv, Arts in Student Life Coordinator at the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa)
Ms. Teitelbaum was the faculty chair at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York for 14 years and continues to teach and stage works for the Merce Cunningham Trust. Well regarded for bringing singular clarity to the study of this technique, she is available to teach technique class, alone or in combination with repertory and/or the Feldenkrais Method®.
To create a dance residency for your school or organization, please contact her at [email protected].
