From the Saint Cloud Times article Dance Event a Hot Ticket.
Written by Adam Hammer on August 6, 2008
WAITE PARK — Tickets to the three-night-only landmark event “Merce on the Rocks” are selling fast.
“Merce on the Rocks,” a dance performance co-commissioned by the
College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, will take place more than 100
feet down, at the bottom of the Rainbow Granite Quarry in Waite Park.
The performance is a remounting of “Ocean,” performed by 14 dancers
from Merce Cunningham Dance Co. of New York and a 150-member orchestra
led by St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra.
Sept. 11 and Sept. 13
performances are almost sold out, according to information Tuesday from
the Walker Art Center. There were 1,000 tickets available for each
performance. The Sept. 12 performance has 100-200 seats remaining.
Sept. 14 is reserved as a rain date if one of the performances is postponed because of weather.
“We’ve
just had immense ticket sales that we weren’t expecting,” said Brianne
Whitcraft, a marketing specialist with the Walker Art Center in
Minneapolis.
Whitcraft said the high ticket sales are surprising
because of the cost — $50 each — and because the event takes place more
than an hour away from the Twin Cities, where most of the Walker Art
Center’s and co-commissioner Northrup Dance’s season ticket holders
reside.
Tickets went on sale to Walker members and Northrup
subscribers March 14. Tickets have been available to the general public
since April 14.
Collaborative project
Walker Art Center is
the lead commissioner of the event along with the Benedicta Arts Center
of the College of St. Benedict and Northrup Dance at the University of
Minnesota.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event and I think people are feeling that,” Whitcraft said.
Merce
Cunningham Dance Co. has a long-standing relationship with all three of
the organizations. The company had its first residency at the Walker in
1969 and has had a relationship with the College of St. Benedict since
the 1980s.
Once in a lifetime
“Ocean” is one of 89-year-old
Cunningham’s most ambitious works. It was originally performed to an
electronic score by John Cage in 1994. The orchestral score was adapted
by Andrew Culver.
Performing the work at the bottom of a granite
quarry through a statewide collaboration of prominent art organizations
makes “Merce on the Rocks” one of the most sensational dance projects
in the country this year, organizers say.
“The work itself stands alone, and then you put it in this context,” said Walker representative Phillip Bahar.
The
layout of the venue will be a layered spectacle that engulfs the
audience and dancers in sound. On the rim above the seating structure,
the orchestra will encircle the audience, which encircles the dancers
in the quarry bowl.
Martin Marietta Materials, the company that
owns Rainbow Quarry, is preparing the quarry for the performance this
month. Work begins in early September.