Recently we discovered a film of the ballet "
Roaratorio," danced to noise - we will not say "music" - of Mr. Cage the notorious Northern American poser. Mr. Lebrecht - an excellent judge of men - calls him "too puerile for words" and that is about right. Being a Northern American, he loved to fire pistols in mid-concert, and encouraged performers to remove their clothing (which believe it or not several of the stupider sort in the '-sixties actually did!) It was principally in the expectation that we might see a bit of that that we had a look at this "ballet" choreographed by his younger bed-mate - a Mr. Cunningham - but to our infinite regret all clothing was left in place.
After two minutes we muted off the sound, as it was simply an affront to the ear. Left with the dancing then, we found it utterly without interest - a score or so of excessively beefy young persons leaping about and striking meaningless attitudes. Indeed that is probably an accurate reflection of the extent of the man Cunningham's knowledge of ballet - it consists for him of "people leaping about and striking attitudes" - and so that and nothing more is what he gives us. It precisely parallels his partner's knowledge of music does it not.
But we know that the inner clique at R3OK being pseuds of the first order loves to discuss the productions of these men. Therefore I would like to make them a proposition: I will let them know where and how the file of this intolerable "ballet"-film may be retrieved, on condition that the membership both of myself and of all the other exiles is unfrozen.
And naturally, in the unlikely event that any members of the current infinitely more erudite forum would care to have the same information, they may simply send me a P.M.
