Tacita makes Tacet

Micropop has been silent for a while, so meanwhile, I thought I'd direct you to the Dia:Beacon tacit thing–British artist Tacita Dean (what a great name) does Tacet I. Tacet II. Tacet III., aka, John Cage's 4'33" all over again with Merce Cunningham and video. Okay. So everyone is soooo over 4'33". BUT. Check it out. It was cool. Cunningham is the Elliot Carter of the dance world. Old. Historic. Monumental, but ALIVE! Take a guess at what Merce does in Dean's videos of him?! (Hint: the piece is called “Merce Cunningham performs Stillness (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4’33”). It's actually pretty poignant. And beyond the sentimental value of watching an old dancer "dance" the best he can, the experience of visually being in the dark, with only the sound of reel-to-reels and flickering images of Merce in his studio, it draws you in to a different kind of silence. What we lose in the zen-revelation value of 4'33" of ye olde days, we gain in a crusty, flickery, unsentimental way. Tacita is a little bit sneaky, a pretty bit clever, and very much drew me into her world of a 4'33" looped and multiplied by 6 and set in the age of a temporally confused present.

Check out the nytimes review: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/arts/design/22dia.html