This online film series features three dance films made expressly for public television broadcast on stations KQED (Northern California) in the 1960s, WNET (New York) in the 1970s, and KTCA (Minneapolis) in the 1980s. During this era, choreographers, video artists, and filmmakers overlapped in fruitful collaborations that opened up possibilities for new ways to present dynamic dance movement before the camera. The use of television as a format allowed for a more experimental approach to choreography and action, as did the embrace of technical innovation in film and video, including multiple camera angles and editing which allowed for nonlinear shifts in space and time.
Header image: Merce Cunningham with Richard Moore, Assemblage, 1968 (still); courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York, and the Merce Cunningham Trust