Grand Union (dance group)
Encyclopedia
The Grand Union was an improvisational
dance group based in New York City
from 1970 to 1976. It grew out of Yvonne Rainer's piece Continuous Project - Altered Daily. Rainer's sole authority as choreographer began to slip in early 1970 when the dancers, at her invitation, began to bring in their own materials for the piece. By late 1970, new members had joined the group and the materials were improvised to a much greater extent. The company, which was still often billed as "Yvonne Rainer and Dancers" in the beginning, chose "The Grand Union" as a name to avoid any obvious associations with dance in order to inoculate themselves against charges that what they were doing was not properly dance. To avoid problems with the supermarket chain of the same name, the group used the legal name "Rio Grand Union".
Dance artists involved with Grand Union included
Others who performed as guests or rehearsed with the group include:
About 6 to 9 dancers would appear for each performance, which generally lasted about 2 hours. In 1982, David Gordon, one of the regular performers, described one concert in Ohio:
Dance improvisation
Dance improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating movement. Development of improvised movement material is facilitated through a variety of creative explorations including body mapping through body mind centering, levels, shape and dynamics , sensory experiences through touch or contact...
dance group based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from 1970 to 1976. It grew out of Yvonne Rainer's piece Continuous Project - Altered Daily. Rainer's sole authority as choreographer began to slip in early 1970 when the dancers, at her invitation, began to bring in their own materials for the piece. By late 1970, new members had joined the group and the materials were improvised to a much greater extent. The company, which was still often billed as "Yvonne Rainer and Dancers" in the beginning, chose "The Grand Union" as a name to avoid any obvious associations with dance in order to inoculate themselves against charges that what they were doing was not properly dance. To avoid problems with the supermarket chain of the same name, the group used the legal name "Rio Grand Union".
Dance artists involved with Grand Union included
- Trisha BrownTrisha BrownTrisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
- Barbara Dilley
- Douglas DunnDouglas DunnDouglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull...
- David Gordon
- Nancy Lewis
- Steve PaxtonSteve PaxtonSteve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown...
- Yvonne RainerYvonne RainerYvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
Others who performed as guests or rehearsed with the group include:
- Becky Arnold
- Vicky Ruane
- Valda SetterfieldValda SetterfieldValda Setterfield is a dancer and actress noted for his work as a soloist with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and her performances with and in the work of her husband, postmodern choreographer and director David Gordon. She has been described as Gordon's "muse"...
- Lincoln Scott
About 6 to 9 dancers would appear for each performance, which generally lasted about 2 hours. In 1982, David Gordon, one of the regular performers, described one concert in Ohio:
[A]n audience of 200 showed up ... [A]fter the first half-hour, there were approximately 150 people left, and after the second half-hour there were 100 people and by the time performance ended there were somewhere between 12 and 20 people left, And those few people who stayed around at the end, asked us where we were going next. "You don't know what this means to us out here," they said. "You don't know what you've done, how you've changed our lives." ... It took me awhile to understand that if 180 people walk out, it isn't the end of the world – if the 20 people left have the best time they've ever had.
See also
- contact improvisationContact improvisationContact improvisation is a dance technique in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation...
- dance improvisationDance improvisationDance improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating movement. Development of improvised movement material is facilitated through a variety of creative explorations including body mapping through body mind centering, levels, shape and dynamics , sensory experiences through touch or contact...
- Judson Dance TheaterJudson Dance TheaterJudson Dance Theater was an informal group of dancers who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. It grew out of a dance composition class taught by Robert Dunn, a musician who had studied with John Cage...
- postmodern dancePostmodern dancePostmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....