Composition for Harry and Edward, Billie and George
Either February 16 or February 19--1978 and 1913, respectively--invite the ghosts of Red Count Harry Kessler, Edward Gordon Craig, Billie Hutching and a pre-cancerous George Maciunas (as well as “Mickey,” the seaman), to lunch at Ear Inn on 326 Spring Street--as close to the original bank of the Hudson River as is allowed.
[N.B. No cell phones will be allowed, though.]
Now, imagine E.G. Craig proposing an idea that Maciunas should appear in a ballet--sometimes as a man and sometimes as a girl. Looking a lot like his mother, eyepatch and all, he should embody the ideal figure of a woman in the following Lacanotation:
Maciunas and a corps of adolescent girls come from the Hudson. Together, they form a circle which threatens to mingle with another circle of boys. They are not entirely formed beings; their sex is single and double, like that of the tree. The groups continue to try to mingle, but in their rhythms, one feels the cataclysm of a discrete group about to form. In fact, they divide right and left.
“It is the realization of form, the synthesis of rhythms and the thing nearly formed--itself--that produces a new rhythm,” Montjoie might write.
Naturally, Hutching will want Schönberg to compose the music. She and Maciunas believe that Schönberg's ultramodern, peculiar manner was, as if, made for the fantastically poetic subject. Upon translation, Craig will be completely crushed, because one thinks of his work as strange and ultramodern.
"I had hoped I was quite normal and traditional," Craig should say. But again, that's why he prefers James Brown as a composer.
Performances of said ballet may occur anytime--post-May 29, that is. Ideally, sometime before 7:30 p.m. EST on May 23, Barbara Moore should deliver a lecture (using her late husband's slides and the latest edition of n+1) at Anthology Film Archives. Laird M. Easton and Ricciotto Canudo should receive special invites, as should Larry Miller and Geoff Hendricks.
It’d be nice if it were raining, too.
