I've been thinking about how Martha Graham gave Merce Cunningham the role of the priest and the jester, how apt.
Indeed, his role has been to disguise his desire and expression of meaning in the mask of non-meaning. Of course, it all bursts through in his dances -- if we are attentive we read the meaning, plainly, each for ourselves. So he does the work that needs to be done.
But it's the role he's played, pulling himself off as a non-meaner, inadvertently (or advertently) leading a merry wayward band astray -- occupying themselves in how-to's and un-doings and not-doings and abstractions -- scared to just 'fess up to the doings they desperately need to do. Nice work, Joker. I hate boys with acolytes and sycophants. It unbecomes them.
