ABSTRACT
Gather 10 people at random from the streets of New York City, line them up in a row, and (to borrow a phrase from Holly Hughes) “hit them over the head.” Not with a didactic monologue excerpted from a blunt exercise in victim art, but with a blunt object of some sort; in other words, literally-rather than metaphorically-hit them over the head. They will all react. Then, expose the same randomly selected focus group to a performance of Cunningham’s “Summerspace” or “Rainforest.” In this case, the results will be much less predictable, uniform, and immediate. Surely, some members of this captive audience will be bored or indifferent, others baffled and irritated, a few may be mildly intrigued, and one or two may be awestruck and conclude that the encounter “changed their lives.” These predictions are highly speculative, but one thing is certain: the effect of the Cunningham performance on those who attend it will not be a matter of Newtonian action/reaction or Pavlovian stimulus/response; both the short and long-term result will be something more closely analogous to a dawning of awareness or the planting of a seed, which may or may not blossom at a later date.
