While studying painting at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, during Jane Comforts senior year (1967) she saw a performance by Merce Cunningham, which became an instant inspiration to her. After spending two years in the Peace Corps with her husband in 1970 she moved to New York to begin studying dance with Merce Cunningham. She realized that she was tired of painting and that the idea of sitting and creating art in that manner bored her, which is why she wanted to begin dancing so badly. She tried to join Merce’s intermediate class but was actually kicked out and told she needed to be in the beginner class. She ended up studying with Merce for four years; her main goal was that she wanted to be in his company. Though, she did not want to just keep herself to one technique especially since she did not know what her future would be with Merce’s company, so she started auditioning and ended up joining James Cunningham’s company. Although Merce Cunningham had been the one to truly inspire and help Jane to persevere in dance, it was James Cunningham that has helped form the technique and brilliant ideas that Jane works with today. James worked with personalities, in Merce’s company they were quiet, well mannered, extremely professional, and you could not really express your personality. With James, Jane Comfort could combine improvisation, theatre, and dance creating a whole no world of art for her. This is where she gained her inspiration for her works today. She did not want her dancing to be so static and not relatable, she wanted to deal with real issues in a satirical and vibrant way.
Above is a picture of the brilliant Merce Cunningham, who Jane Comfort studied with in the beginning of her dance career.
""You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive"
-Merce Cunningham
I am inspired by the fact that Jane Comfort would move from a place of familiarity with Merce Cunningham to take a new challenge in her dancing career by working with James Cunningham. Had she not opened her horizons she would not be creating works like she is today.
First of all, I just want to say how inspiring it is that Jane Comfort served in the Peace Corps. Second, I find it fascinating how Comfort originally wanted to join Cunningham's company, when his works completely depart from emotion, theatre, and typical aesthetics. From what I've read and seen, Comfort and her dancers seem to evoke and embody emotion in their dancing (which I love). I think it was extremely smart of her to dabble in more than one technique, or else she might not have discovered James Cunningham, which appears to be one of the turning points in her career.
ReplyDeleteK- I am deeply inspired by her comments about being both a mother and a choreographer (had to put that on my bulletin board!) and her statement "I am always looking for the metaphor in the structure." A new, contemporary way of saying "the form is the message." You found so much about this important artist, great work!
ReplyDeleteIt is great that Jane Comfort served in the Peace Corp. I do sympathize her views on painting or art forms where yu sit for long periods of time. I feel dance is like nothing elsea and I think she felt that way as well. I find it interesting that Comfort wanted to be in Merce Cunningham's company, but took her dancing and work on a different path than Merce Cunningham. It was a completely different style and take on dance and the use of it as well.
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