Despite high aspirations,‘No Fixed Points’ misses the point

When stripped down to the bare essentials, dance and architecture are essentially the same thing. Or at least, “No Fixed Points in Space” attempted to prove that they are.

“No Fixed Points,” presented at Miller Theatre on Tuesday night, was the first in a series of symposia held with the purpose of examining the relationship between dance and architecture in the spirit of late choreographer Merce Cunningham.

The program alternated between performances by the Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group and discussion with a panel of professionals involved in architecture, digital design, music, and choreography.

The visual, corporal experience of the dance, combined with the intellectual nature of the discussion, embarked on an ambitious mission to draw parallels between modern architecture and avant-garde dance—a mission that ultimately proved too bold for those involved.

Cunningham, whose ground-breaking work rose to the forefront of post-modern dance in the mid-20th century, used “chance” method as the basis of his movement philosophy. This meant that any movement, created by any procedure using any part of the body, was viable material for a dance. Additionally, Cunningham viewed music, lighting, and dance as performance elements that should be crafted separately, only to unite during the actual show.

Ironically, the underlying architectural premise of “No Fixed Points” was entirely absent from the performance—the dance pieces, MinEvent 1 and MinEvent 2, were completely devoid of structure. The dancers’ orientations were often random and unrelated, although familiar patterns and relationships arose as the vocabulary repeated itself. The pieces were technical and not shockingly innovative, although they posed an interesting study on the limitations of human framework.

The starkness of the lighting, costumes, mood, and dancing were identifiably Cunningham—the movement was driven by an anatomical, isolating, and linear vocabulary rather than an overriding concept.

As such, while Cunningham’s choreography held its own, the panel struggled to justify his work’s relationship to architecture. Although interesting points arose about the practicality of architecture coinciding with the practicality of Cunningham’s style, the overall discussion was not cohesive and failed to address any major issues.

Yes, both dance and architecture are arts of physics—however, they have crucial differences that “No Fixed Points” ignored. Buildings, unlike dance, are not forms of communication or studies of human nature. Buildings are more permanent while dances are fleeting. Most significantly, buildings are not created with the purpose of self-expression or experimentation, but with the purpose of function—they are, fundamentally, where people live.

It seemed the audience realized how greatly the performance had missed its mark—the packed theater slowly emptied as the performance progressed, leaving the Q&A with a dismal turnout. As the series runs its course, much more than the choreography itself needs to find an underlying architecture.