Maud Allan Affair Book

What a treat. After ten years of respecting but not loving Cunningham's work, the last concert at BAM remains one of the most searing theatrical experiences I've encountered. Cunningham, feral? Feral. And so I finally got to Brown's 600 page chronicle of the early years of that work.

Carolyn Brown seems to have met everyone who was anyone during the twenty years she dedicated her life to the developing work of Merce Cunningham. She manages to separate the theory from the reality of Cunningham's extraordinary work. An engaging book on several levels: as one of the best "dance memoirs" I've ever read (Brown's descriptions of the agony and the ecstasy of the dancer's life rank with the best), as a chronicle of an extraordinary period in cultural history, and as a thoughtful discussion of the radical philosophy of John Cage from the inside. Brown's take on Cage's attempts to make his life a work of art are fascinating and worth contemplating again and again. And then the dirt: Marcel Duchamp, Stockhausen, the first Judson Dance Concerts, Claes Oldenberg, Christian Wolff, De Kooning, Margot Fonteyn, Anthony Tudor, Balanchine, Mary Wigman, the Beatles, Pauline Oliveros, Twyla Tharp, Nureyev, and of course detailed account of Bob Rauschenberg and Jaspar Johns, along with so many more I'm not mentioning. A telling anecdote for all.