Ann Ray / OnP

Ballet

New

Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

Palais Garnier

from 15 April to 13 May 2017

1h50 with 1 interval

Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

Palais Garnier - from 15 April to 13 May 2017

Synopsis

"Choreography is a language. […] The most important thing is how you speak with the language, not what you say."

William Forsythe

The evening continues with two ballets by William Forsythe. 15 to play with the weight and balance of three dancers, the second prefers to explore movement with Thom Willems' electronic music to bring out what is most often invisible.

Duration : 1h50 with 1 interval

Artists

New to the repertoire

Set design after Marcel Duchamp, Le Grand Verre
Costum designs after Jasper Johns

Creative team

  • opera logo
    David Behrman Music
  • opera logo
    Merce Cunningham Choreography
  • opera logo
    Beverly Emmons Lighting design

Cast

  • Friday 14 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 15 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Tuesday 18 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Wednesday 19 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Thursday 20 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 21 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 22 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Wednesday 26 April 2017 at 20:30
  • Sunday 30 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Thursday 04 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 05 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Sunday 07 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Monday 08 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Tuesday 09 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 12 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 20:00

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

New to the repertoire

Recorded music

Creative team

Cast

  • Friday 14 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 15 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Tuesday 18 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Wednesday 19 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Thursday 20 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 21 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 22 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Wednesday 26 April 2017 at 20:30
  • Sunday 30 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Thursday 04 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 05 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Sunday 07 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Monday 08 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Tuesday 09 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 12 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 20:00

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Creative team

Cast

  • Friday 14 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 15 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Tuesday 18 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Wednesday 19 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Thursday 20 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 21 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 22 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Wednesday 26 April 2017 at 20:30
  • Sunday 30 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Thursday 04 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 05 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Sunday 07 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Monday 08 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Tuesday 09 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 12 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 20:00

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Creation (Improvised solo)

On 8, 9, 12 and 13 mai only

Cast

  • Friday 14 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 15 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Tuesday 18 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Wednesday 19 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Thursday 20 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 21 April 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 22 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Wednesday 26 April 2017 at 20:30
  • Sunday 30 April 2017 at 14:30
  • Thursday 04 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 05 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Sunday 07 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Monday 08 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Tuesday 09 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Friday 12 May 2017 at 19:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 14:30
  • Saturday 13 May 2017 at 20:00

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Latest update 04 May 2017, cast is likely to change.

Les Étoiles, les Premiers Danseurs et le Corps de Ballet

Media

  • Rencontre avec Hugo Marchand

    Rencontre avec Hugo Marchand

    Listen the podcast

  • Podcast Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

    Podcast Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

    Listen the podcast

  • Beyond reference

    Beyond reference

    Watch the video

  • Marcel Duchamp Walkaround

    Marcel Duchamp Walkaround

    Read the article

  • Breath of Life

    Breath of Life

    Watch the video

Rencontre avec Hugo Marchand

Listen the podcast

Le nouveau danseur Étoile du ballet de l’Opéra de Paris répond à nos questions en live !

Rencontre avec Hugo Marchand

By Octave

Nommé Étoile au Japon en mars dernier, alors qu’il interprétait pour la première fois le rôle de James dans La Sylphide, Hugo Marchand revient sur sa nomination et cette prise de rôle, qu’il dansera à nouveau en juin au Palais Garnier. Actuellement en répétition d’Herman Schmerman de William Forsythe, il nous livre ses impressions sur cette entrée au répertoire, bientôt à l’affiche. De l’École de danse de l’Opéra au Bunka Kaikan de Tokyo, le danseur n’a fait qu’un pas !

Podcast Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

Listen the podcast

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique

07 min

Podcast Merce Cunningham /​ William Forsythe

By Octave

  " Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" offers original incursions into the season thanks to broadcasts produced by France Musique and the Paris Opera. For each opera or ballet production, Judith Chaine (opera) and Stéphane Grant (dance), present the works and artists you are going to discover when you attend performances in our theatres.    

Beyond reference

Watch the video

All about Herman Schmerman

6:11 min

Beyond reference

By Ann Ray

Now running at the Palais Garnier, William Forsythe's ballet Herman Schmerman is entering the Paris Opera's repertoire. Répétiteur Noah Gelber recounts the creation of this Pas de deux and its handing down, whilst dancers Hannah O'Neill and Hugo Marchand give us their first impressions. An instinctive ballet full of freedom carrying them off into a unique choreographic adventure.    

© Succession Marcel Duchamp / © Jasper Johns / ADAGP, Paris, 2017

Marcel Duchamp Walkaround

Read the article

Or how Marcel Duchamp has magnetized the American avant-garde.

09 min

Marcel Duchamp Walkaround

By Tristan Bera

Merce Cunningham’s choreography Walkaround Time is also an artistic and musical work in its own right. When art, music and dance bring random chance and aleatoric composition together, history is unceasingly rewritten.

It was during the Second World War and through John and Xenia Cage, who were living with Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim at the time, that Merce Cunningham discovered the milieu of the European Avant-garde in exile in New York. Brilliant and pluralistic, the world of European art attracted him strongly in that it was resolutely different from the rigorous discipline of Martha Graham’s company where, from 1939 until 1945, he was a soloist. The artists of the avant-garde and the “-isms” of the early twentieth century defended a total identity and fusion between art and life. In Europe, and later in the United States, the artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements worked together, among friends or as couples. And if there was not always collaboration, in the strict sense of the term, between brothers, friends or spouses, there was dialogue, friendly exchange, a community in which ideas, motifs, works of art and manifestos were born.

Among these artists was Marcel Duchamp, whose encounters during the Belle Époque in Paris or the Roaring Twenties in New York; whose frequent trips back and forth between the old continent and the New World and whose relationships and collaborations with the Arensbergs (both art collectors) and with artists like Apollinaire, Brancusi, Breton, Man Ray, Picabia, Satie and the Stettheimer sisters paint a vivid picture of the international avant-garde scene. During the forties, Duchamp, more “diogenesian” than his fellow travellers, and less concerned with his own reputation and the market value of his works, did not yet enjoy public recognition or the status of a major artist. Discrete, enigmatic and distant, underground before the the term was coined, he was, however, an object of great admiration and curiosity within private artistic circles. John Cage, who was fascinated by the elements of random chance and aleatoric composition that Duchamp was exploiting even in his earliest works, was the first member of the quartet comprising also Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns to meet him.

Cunningham was to recount that it was during an evening party at Marcel and Teeny Duchamp’s home that Johns suggested to him the idea of using Le Grand Verre as a theatrical décor. Instantly seized with enthusiasm, Cunningham asked Johns to run it past Duchamp, who was watching Cage play chess with his wife nearby and smoking a cigar. Johns did as he was asked, though somewhat intimidated. Le Grand Verre or La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même had the aura of a masterpiece. A unique piece, unlike reproducible ready-mades (which belong to everybody), its fabrication, between 1912 and 1923, had taken up all the artist’s time. In order to transform it into an element of stage décor, Johns suggested that it could be reproduced and divided into seven distinct elements. Duchamp, amused as usual but also slightly worried that he might have to take on a work that would curtail his freedom as a distinguished artist and disrupt his tranquillity as a chess player, inquired as to who would build the décor. Johns, himself, volunteered. Duchamp accepted on condition that during the performance the seven detached pieces were reassembled to form an integral whole. Naturally, Cunningham and Johns agreed. 

The Choreographer Merce Cunningham and the composer John Cage, in 1965
The Choreographer Merce Cunningham and the composer John Cage, in 1965 © Jack Mitchell

As well as the décor, Johns designed the costumes. On March 10th 1968 at the University of Buffalo in the state of New York, Merce Cunningham’s Walkaround Time, a production “both rigorous and free, without clichés and without affectation”, on repetitive music by David Behrman, was given its first performance. The dance was not a demonstration. The décor was not an illustration. The music was not an accompaniment. Walkaround Time placed the emphasis on effective and equitable collaboration between disciplines: art, music and dance were “three separate elements, each central in itself”, the objective of the choreographer being to place dance in relation to the most radical art of the 20th century. Marcel Duchamp died on 2nd October 1968. Retrospectively, Walkaround Time takes the form of an acknowledgement of Cunningham's debt to Duchamp: a tribute to an artist who, in modern art, invented a combined, “non-retinal” species of thought, liberty and exploration from one who brought about the conceptual transition between modern dance and contemporary dance.

It is amusing to note that although Marcel Duchamp rejected the principle of influence and was characteristically on the sidelines of Art History and the art market, he has been the object of one of the greatest political and aesthetic re-appropriations of the 20th century. Everyone wanted their share of the Duchamp legacy or claimed him as a father figure. The French have made him the glory of the nation and consider him as marking the starting point (a Duchamp retrospective inaugurated the Pompidou Centre in 1977) and the end (since 2000 the Marcel Duchamp prize has been awarded to a graduate from the FIAC) of the Postmodernist movement. In Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, Duchamp is described as an American artist born in France. American Pop Art and French Nouveau Réalisme are still fighting over the Post-Duchamp legacy. In 2012, the exhibition, “Marcel Duchamp in Munich” at the Lenbachhaus commemorated the centenary of his stay in the Bavarian capital, in the course of which he invented his first ready-made. Brazilian art historians like to recall that the sculptress Maria Martins was the fatal inspiration of his final masterpiece, Étant donnés (1946-1966). And one has lost count of the many and minor artistic references to his work or quotations of his sayings, made in a spirit of rivalry, transformed into mantras or reduced to clichés: “It is the spectators who create the picture”; “the enemy of art is good taste”; “the great man of tomorrow should go underground” etc.

However, Merce Cunningham’s relationship with the work of Duchamp is far more complex and critical, intimate even, than it is imitative. Firstly, it involves a transposition from the field of visual arts to that of dance, a methodological transfer rather than a formal or thematic one. The artist provided the choreographer with a method of working, with rules and combinations,- an instruction manual on the use of his lexical field. The essence of the corporeal movement in both Le Grand Verre and in Walkaround Time is a combination of the mechanical and the erotic: “there is a motor which distributes a love essence to the cylinders”. Cunningham’s physical implication in the work is humoristic also (a primordial dimension for Duchamp) when at a certain point he interprets nudity and movement by undressing and getting dressed again simultaneously whilst running. Le Grand Verre, reproduced by Jasper Johns, was a stripping down, a demystification, of mechanisms that were unexpected, enigmatic and concrete. If from his Nu descendant l’escalier (1912), (the first volume of the trilogy comprising also Le Grand Verre and Étant donnés), onwards, Duchamp’s project was to “reduce a moving silhouette to a line rather than to a skeleton”, Cunningham, by restoring the skeleton to that line, also aimed at a reduction, in his case of choreography, to simple movement per se, devoid of representation and narrative. Dance and Music share a common space-time whilst expressing their own relationship to that space and time with complete independence, “without trying to say anything, just quite simply being,” without narrative or psychological motivation. This is the radical method by which Cunningham translates the ready-made. Marcel Duchamp has no lesson to give, unless it be that of starting from zero, from the roots of the discipline. The avant-garde is like a single machine that operates on its own even if it is part of a network. Cunningham did not see the elements of Jasper Johns’ stage set until the day before the opening, Johns having previously given him the dimensions for the transport of the pieces. Furthermore, throughout their long collaboration, Cunningham and Cage always worked independently of each other, without informing the other about the progress of their creations, in order to conserve something undetermined, an element of chance.

Much has been written and read on the interpretation of Le Grand Verre or La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, meme. Certain commentators, at a loss, have even argued that Duchamp, who always remained mute, wanted to confound critics overly concerned with finding the key to the work. One even remembers that in 1964, Joseph Beuys, furious that the “anartist” was retiring from the world of art to devote his time to playing chess, performed the “Action”: The Silence of Marcel Duchamp Is Overrated. Ultimately, perhaps, the enigma of Le Grand Verre is the real subject of the work. Whilst erotic and humoristic dimensions are primordial for Duchamp in the presentation of life as it really is, the enigmatic is also indispensable, as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, the four major artists of the post-existentialist era, understood.

                                                                                                                                                        Tristan Bera

*The original decor for the 1968 production was conceived and supervised by Jasper Johns. That decor is now in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center. For this production the Paris Opera built a replica under the supervision of Pascal Goblot for the Association Marcel Duchamp. 

Breath of Life

Watch the video

Conversations about Walkaround Time

6:25 min

Breath of Life

By Ann Ray

Walkaround Time by American choreographer Merce Cunningham is about to enrich the repertoire of the Paris Opera. A true homage to the artist Marcel Duchamp, this piece returns to the essence of choreography and of physicality: “We use what we have”, intone the two ballet répétiteurs Meg Harper and Jennifer Goggans; “Our bodies and our breathing become our own music,” explains dancer Grégory Gaillard. Interview.     

  • Lumière sur : Les coulisses de Cunningham / Forsythe
  • Merce Cunningham / William Forsythe

Access and services

Palais Garnier

Place de l'Opéra

75009 Paris

Public transport

Underground Opéra (lignes 3, 7 et 8), Chaussée d’Antin (lignes 7 et 9), Madeleine (lignes 8 et 14), Auber (RER A)

Bus 20, 21, 27, 29, 32, 45, 52, 66, 68, 95, N15, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Edouard VII16 16, rue Bruno Coquatrix 75009 Paris

Book your parking spot

At the Palais Garnier, buy €10 tickets for seats in the 6th category (very limited visibility, two tickets maximum per person) on the day of the performance at the Box offices.

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €25 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €40 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Palais Garnier
  • Every day from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and until performances end
  • Get in from Place de l’Opéra or from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 53 43 03 97

Palais Garnier

Place de l'Opéra

75009 Paris

Public transport

Underground Opéra (lignes 3, 7 et 8), Chaussée d’Antin (lignes 7 et 9), Madeleine (lignes 8 et 14), Auber (RER A)

Bus 20, 21, 27, 29, 32, 45, 52, 66, 68, 95, N15, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Edouard VII16 16, rue Bruno Coquatrix 75009 Paris

Book your parking spot

At the Palais Garnier, buy €10 tickets for seats in the 6th category (very limited visibility, two tickets maximum per person) on the day of the performance at the Box offices.

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €25 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €40 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Palais Garnier
  • Every day from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and until performances end
  • Get in from Place de l’Opéra or from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 53 43 03 97

Partners

  • Sponsor of the Paris Opera initiatives for young people and of the previews

  • With the support of AROP

Immerse in the Paris Opera universe

Follow us

Back to top