Vol. 19, No. 28

April 20, 2000

Innovative dance show a hit with audiences and critics

A celebration of dance and the people who populate its world, conceived by a UD professor, is winning rave reviews in the likes of The New York Times and DANCE magazine. Better still, well-known dancers from near and far are lining up to participate in various versions of The Horse's Mouth Greets the New Millennium, a dance piece created and directed by UD's James L. (Jamie) Cunningham, theatre, and his business partner Tina Croll. The show, which just closed a successful run at the DANSPACE Project in New York City, is an assemblage of dancers of all genres, ages, shapes and sizes. Ninety dancers participated in the latest staging–30 performing each night. They ranged from stars like Carol Lawrence to a hula dancer from Hawaii. Joann Browning, theatre, danced in one performance, as did Grover Dale, winner of Tony, Drama Desk, Emmy and Clio awards. Stuart Hodes, Martha Graham's partner in the 1950s, participated, as did Janaki Patrik, who trained in Kathak Indian dance in New Delhi. As Cunningham explains it, each dancer prepared a one-and-a-half-minute monologue to share with the audience and then had a brief time to dance– 16 counts of movement on the spot and 16 counts of travel through space. The resulting display of various dance forms coupled with entertaining or inspiring stories has dazzled audiences and critics alike. "What a wonderful world the dance world can be! 'The Horse's Mouth Greets the New Millennium' left no doubt about that," Jack Anderson raved about the latest staging in The New York Times. DANCE magazine included an earlier version of the work in its list of the 10 most memorable works of 1999, calling it, "a summation of dance history, given a razor-sharp execution that filled one with pride to be part of the scene." A web review on "the DANCE insider" called the work "a kind of dancers' heaven, an afterworld full of here-and-now, warm anecdotes, theatrical bon mots and a mixture of movement invention from Kathakali to tap." Cunningham said he was sending out his Christmas cards–French ones from the Met with a picture of the shepherds moving toward a star–when inspiration for the show hit. "I thought of all the dancers and choreographers out there each doing their own thing moving toward their own star, and thought, 'Gee, wouldn't it be great to find a way to bring all that talent together,'" he said. "Dancers often work alone, but we are all moving toward the same light." Croll, an old pal, from Cunningham's first dancing days in New York in the l960s loved the idea and had the organizational energy to put things in motion, Cunningham said. "The first time we put the piece together we used modern dancers–basically people who were all our friends. The second time we branched out and added ballet and jazz. This time we took it even further by adding world dance–everything from Flamenco to Japanese dance. It was extremely inclusive and allowed us to not only celebrate these people individually, but dance as a whole. "People love it because it's a rare chance to hear dancers talk. Their stories range from very serious to funny, lots of conflict and resolution," he said. "It's somewhat influenced by my experience with a 12-step program where people go and speak from the heart." Participating dancers love the show, too. "They love the freedom. Dancers are used to being given all the steps. This they create on their own. Backstage it's like one big class reunion, and that camaraderie carries over onto the stage. The performers all said the experience was very reaffirming," Cunningham said. "We had dancers from their 20s to their 70s, and we all felt like we were a marvelous part of the field. The young ones keep coming up to me and telling me what an honor it is to be in the show. The ones over 40 are thrilled that people still want to see them dance when they no longer have the 20-year-old bodies. It's living dance history." The importance of the historical aspect has not be lost, Cunningham said, as the Lincoln Center has filmed the performances twice over the past three years and filmed interviews with all of the dancers involved. The show is easy to produce, Cunningham said. "Working with all those pros you really only need one rehearsal." And, he added the dancers perform for free. "We wouldn't have enough money to pay 90 people subway fare," he said. "These artists are performing because they love it. For instance, Carol Lawrence saw a performance in L.A. and then flew to New York to participate the next time we did it." Plans for the future include summer performances in San Francisco and Los Angeles and an appearance at the prestigious American Dance Festival the following year. There are whispers of taking it to the Kennedy Center, and one of Cunningham's dreams would be to put the show together in Paris or London. Right now, anything seems possible. Cunningham, a native of Toronto, holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English literature. He studied acting in England and dance on scholarship with Martha Graham. In the mid-1960s he was part of the Dance Theatre Workshop where he first met Croll. He has worked in New York as a freelance actor, dancer, choreographer, director and writer for 30 years. In 1985, he answered an ad in ArtSearch magazine for a theatre instructor at UD and has divided his time between Newark and New York ever since. While he has had a successful and sustaining career, Cunningham is the first to admit that success this big is great fun. "Tina and I almost feel as if we've invented Kleenex," he said. "Of course, the people who invented that probably made a great deal more money. Oh well," he shrugs, that's the arts!" –Beth Thomas