| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | 1977 |
| Instrumentation: | For three to perform |
| Duration: | indeterminate |
| Premiere and performer(s): | January 18, 1977 at the Minskoff Theatre in New York City, with the choreography, performed by Merce Cunningham and Company. Music performed by David Behrman, Joseph Kubera, and David Tudor, using recordings by Norman Robinson, part of the Australian National Collection of Recorded Bird Calls, as well as telephone messages of the Rare Bird Alert Network, Horse Race Results, Sports News, Dial-A-Prayer, Dial-A-Money-saving-Tip, Pan-American World Airways arrival and departure information and others |
| Dedicated to: | --- |
| Choreography: | Merce Cunningham: Travelogue (1977) |
| Published: | Edition Peters 66689 © 1977 by Henmar Press. |
| Manuscript: | Score (holograph in ink - 8 p.); Score (galley proof of the instructions, signed; Lacking numerical tables - 4 p.); Draft of instructions (holograph in ink - 1 p.); Sketches (holograph in pencil and ink, partially typed - 3 p.); Sketches (holograph in ink - 1 folder), all in New York Public Library. |
| Published score consists of a title page and 3 pages with written instructions, plus 12 pages with instructions
on how to group numbers relating to the I Ching. This is a works for 3 performers using recordings of bird calls and dialling telephone numbers with announcements (not requiring response on the part of the one calling). Other recordings than those of birds are allowed, but should all fall in one category. If, for instance the sounds of trains are used, the titles changes to Telephones and Birds (Not Birds, but Trains). The performers agree on any duration of performance. The score gives questions and actions, the answers being determined by tossing coins and using the I Ching. Typical questions: "Shall I perpare my first action in advance of the performance?", "What am I to do first? Telephone or play a record?", "For how long?", etc. Sources: Published score; New York Public Library online catalog; Paul van Emmerik's A John Cage Compendium; C.F.Peters catalog; David Vaughan: Merce Cunningham - Fifty Years |